Recently, 23andMe significantly improved relationship estimates with two new updates: a new algorithm that improves predictions for distant relatives and HybridIBDSM, a new method to determine DNA Relatives.



These improvements are particularly beneficial for those who use 23andMe to find connections with their most distant DNA Relatives. Whether you&#8217;re a hobbyist dabbling in genealogy or a dedicated researcher tracing distant branches of your family tree, these changes will provide better insights to help you delve more into your genetic connections.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-these-updates-mean-for-you">What These Updates Mean for You</h2>



With these updates, all customers will receive improved relationship predictions. These predictions will help you uncover older family connections that may date back much further than previously possible.



Existing 23andMe+ Premium and Total Health members will automatically be computed using the new HybridIBD algorithm. This will result in new and improved distant relatives. This update will provide more reliable insights for your genealogy research. 



All new 23andMe ancestry customers will be computed using the new HybridIBD algorithm.&nbsp;



Existing Ancestry and Health + Ancestry Service customers who want their results to be computed using the HybridIBD algorithm should upgrade to 23andMe+ Premium or Total Health.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ibd-the-science-behind-your-genetic-matches">IBD: The Science Behind Your Genetic Matches</h2>



Have you ever wondered what the signature of genetic relatedness is? The hallmark of genetic relatedness is long tracts of DNA shared between two people. Using shared DNA to estimate relatedness is called identity-by-descent (IBD). 



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="280" height="300" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-280x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-33274" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-280x300.jpg 280w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-768x822.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-957x1024.jpg 957w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-822x880.jpg 822w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-1102x1180.jpg 1102w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_.jpg 1121w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px" /></figure>



We use IBD extensively within 23andMe, especially in our feature, DNA Relatives. DNA Relatives shows customers how close their relationships are.&nbsp; We are launching these two updates to improve the accuracy of our relationship predictions. The first update changes our method of making relationship estimates from IBD data. The second update improves the algorithm we use to detect IBD in the first place.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-improved-relationship-predictions">Improved Relationship Predictions</h2>



You may have noticed that your predictions from 23andMe and other companies top out around the 5th or 6th cousins. This is regardless of how far down the list of relatives you scroll. For the better part of two decades, researchers have thought that the most distant relationship we could detect using IBD was around 15 degrees. This corresponds roughly to an 8th cousin who shares a common ancestor during the American Revolutionary War. It has long been possible to detect small shared segments that arose hundreds of generations in the past. However, it was thought that the long shared DNA segments detected among genotyped individuals in large databases like that of 23andMe represented relatively recent relationships.



Most relatives inferred by 23andMe are probably moderately distant, perhaps from 4th to 15th cousins. However, a new 23andMe paper released earlier this year demonstrated that the most distant relationship we can detect may be closer to a few hundred degrees. This corresponds to a common ancestor who lived thousands of years ago, perhaps before the rise of the Roman Empire.



There are two primary reasons existing relationship estimates do not go back that far. First, existing inference methods underestimate the probability that distant relatives share IBD. These estimators assume that each pair of distant relatives is connected through only one genealogical lineage. This can be a reasonable assumption when two relatives are closely related, but the assumption breaks down when we consider relationships whose common ancestors lived many generations in the past. In the distant past, each person shared many common ancestors with each of their relatives. Each person is connected to their ancestors by many different lineages, a phenomenon known as “pedigree collapse”.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-published-research-on-relationship-inference">Published Research on Relationship Inference</h2>



<a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.13.594005v1.full.pdf">Our recent pape</a>r pointed out that the formulas underlying existing relationship inference methods don’t account for pedigree collapse. The fact that we are connected to each of our relatives many times over means that there are many paths for DNA transmission, not just one. This leads to a higher probability than we thought of sharing DNA with very distant relatives. As a result, there is a reasonable chance of sharing DNA with someone through an ancestor who lived many hundreds or even thousands of years in the past.



The second reason existing relationship estimators underestimate relationships is that they are applied almost exclusively to pairs of individuals known to share IBD in the first place. Genetic testing companies use a two-step procedure to identify your relatives. First, they find people with whom they share IBD. Next, they use this IBD to estimate relationships. However, the formulas that underlie existing relationship estimators aren’t designed for this approach. Instead, the formulas assume that two putative relatives were selected regardless of whether or not they shared IBD. Until our recent paper, it wasn’t well understood that this unintended application of estimators profoundly affected the inferences they made.&nbsp;



Below, Figure 1A shows the result of estimating a relationship using an existing relationship estimator, i.e., without accounting for two people sharing IBD.



In comparison, Figure 1B shows estimates made when accounting for the fact that IBD is shared. Figure 1 shows that existing relationship estimates all have a ceiling of around 10 degrees and are profoundly biased for more distant relationships. In comparison, a new estimator that accounts for observed IBD can generate very deep relationship estimates. Moreover, the higher uncertainty in the latest estimates captures the true range of likely relationships.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="194" height="300" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Estimated-Degree-v-True-Degree-194x300.jpg" alt="Two graphs showing degree of relatedness." class="wp-image-33299" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Estimated-Degree-v-True-Degree-194x300.jpg 194w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Estimated-Degree-v-True-Degree-661x1024.jpg 661w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Estimated-Degree-v-True-Degree-568x880.jpg 568w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Estimated-Degree-v-True-Degree.jpg 678w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px" /></figure>



Figure 1: Existing and new relationship estimates. A) A relationship estimator that does not account for the fact that at least one segment of IBD is observed. B) An estimator that accounts for observing at least one segment of IBD.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-introducing-hybridibd-exceptionally-accurate-dna-matching">Introducing HybridIBD: Exceptionally Accurate DNA Matching</h2>



The new DNA relationship estimates described above rely on accurate IBD detection. HybridIBD is a new IBD detection algorithm that combines strengths from two separate 23andMe IBD algorithms to dramatically improve IBD detection. Let&#8217;s take a look at these two algorithms.



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>phasedIBD compares matches between phased genomes, separated into distinct parental contributions. It excels at finding the short IBD segments that connect you to distant relatives. With phasedIBD, segments down to 5 cM or shorter can be identified reliably. This is important for accurately identifying distant relatives!</li>



<li>IBD64 works by comparing unphased genomes, which gives it an advantage for finding long IBD segments shared between close relatives since these are often considerably fragmented by phasing errors. For a more detailed assessment of phasedIBD and IBD64, see the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa328">paper authored by 23andMe scientists in Molecular Biology and Evolution</a>.</li>
</ul>



With HybridIBD, every new genome is first analyzed by phasedIBD to find distant relatives. Then, any pair sharing a significant amount of IBD has refined their IBD using IBD64. This dual approach leverages the strengths of each algorithm, improving the overall accuracy of DNA Relatives.



We&#8217;ve developed a robust and scalable pipeline for HybridIBD that processes new customers against our database of over 15 million individuals, discovering approximately 300 million new relationships daily!



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-benefits-for-23andme-customers">Benefits for 23andMe Customers</h2>



When the new relationship estimators are implemented, all 23andMe customers can expect improved distant relative predictions for many relatives currently predicted as second cousins or higher. &nbsp;Customers will also see improvements in some close relationship predictions, especially first cousins, as the new estimator better accounts for age differences between you and your relatives.



Customers with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry will see particularly large improvements in their distant relative predictions because our new relationship estimator better accounts for pedigree collapse, which was particularly strong in the historical Ashkenazi population. The new, wider confidence intervals also better capture the true range of likely relationships.



Customers’ results computed with HybridIBD can expect further changes. First, the accuracy of distant DNA Relatives will increase significantly. With phasedIBD now responsible for identifying distant relatives, many previous identifications made by IBD64 will be superseded by more accurate matches from phasedIBD. Two particular improvements to call out are that customers with South Asian, West Asian, or North African ancestries will find fewer DNA relationships with customers with only European ancestry, and customers with East Asian ancestries will see significantly more accurate second, third, and fourth-cousin relationships.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-learn-more">Learn More</h2>



If you’re curious to learn more about the science behind these updates, we recommend checking out these papers:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.13.594005.">Ethan M. Jewett and the 23andMe Research Team (2024). Correcting model misspecification in relationship estimates bioRxiv.</a> </li>



<li><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa328">&#8220;Fast and Robust Identity-by-Descent Inference with the Templated Positional Burrows-Wheeler Transform&#8221; by Freyman, W. A., et al., in Molecular Biology and Evolution (2021).</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-find-out-more">Find out more</h2>



23andMe customers can see their<a href="https://you.23andme.com/reports/ancestry_composition_hd/"> Ancestry Composition</a>.&nbsp;



Are you still waiting to be a customer? Find out more about 23andMe’s<a href="https://www.23andme.com/compare-dna-tests/">&nbsp; Ancestry Service and other services</a>.

Improvements to DNA Relatives: New HybridIBD Algorithm and Relationship Predictions

You&#8217;re more than just your genetics; insights from DNA testing can help add dimensions to your family history, ancestors, and sometimes distant connections to populations worldwide.



When exploring those connections, you need a trusted guide like 23andMe. 23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service offers the most comprehensive genetic ancestry breakdown on the market, with more than 3,500 geographic regions, reports on traits, Neanderthal Ancestry, your Ancestry Timeline, ancient maternal and paternal lineages, and more. The Ancestry Service also offers access to our pioneering DNA Relative Finder tool, 23andMe&#8217;s automatic family tree builder, and more than 30 trait reports, with insights into hair and eye color, taste preferences, and facial characteristics.



In this post, we&#8217;ll tell you a little about what you can learn using the 23andMe Ancestry Service.&nbsp; Oh, and in case you didn&#8217;t know, 23andMe is also the only DNA ancestry service that allows you to upgrade to include FDA-authorized health reports anytime.



So, let&#8217;s look at 23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service. And just a heads up before you dive in, it also happens to be a great time to do so. Now through October 15, 2024, we have our lowest price of the year on the 23andMe Ancestry Service for customers in the United States at just $59. Learn more <a href="https://www.23andme.com/">here</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ancestry-composition">Ancestry Composition</h2>



Like everything at 23andMe, it all starts with science and a touch of wonder.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1008" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_-1024x1008.jpg" alt="An image of a customers Ancestry composition on a mobile phone," class="wp-image-33273" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_-1024x1008.jpg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_-300x295.jpg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_-768x756.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_-880x867.jpg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_-1180x1162.jpg 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/71Su-aPJvtL._AC_SL1500_.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



Here&#8217;s a fascinating fact: your DNA is not just a blueprint for what makes you you; it&#8217;s also a record of your ancestors&#8217; geographic origins.



<a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-guide/">23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Composition</a> helps you visualize your ancestral origins. 23andMe compares thousands of sections of DNA across your genome to an ever-expanding library of reference populations. Then, we use those comparisons to assign a closely matching reference population for each of those sections of your DNA, and then we tally them up. That allows our Ancestry Composition tool to break down the percentages of your DNA that link to different populations from Asia, Europe, the Americas, or Africa.



We arrange this breakdown into a hierarchy. At the top is the continent level, which is then broken down into the region, country, and local levels. That breakdown is all plotted on a map to help you visualize where your DNA is from.&nbsp;



The Ancestry Composition report also shows specific Genetic Groups you match with, which may reveal connections to specific cultural, ethnic, or linguistic groups such as Germany’s historically Swabian-speaking communities, people from Italy’s Monregalese region, the Maya peoples of Mesoamerica, Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest, the Ashanti people from what is now Ghana, historical Sephardic Jewish communities of northeastern Mexico, and so much more.&nbsp;



Over the last few years, 23andMe has updated the granularity of results for customers with ancestral lines from around the world. Read about our recent updates here:<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/new-genetic-groups-for-japan-and-scandinavia"> Japan &amp; Scandinavia</a>,<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/germanic-europe-genetic-groups"> Germanic Europe</a>,<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/23andme-improves-ancestry-results-for-people-with-south-american-levantine-sephardic-and-mizrahi-genetic-ancestry"> South America, and the Levant</a>,<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/african-ethnolinguistic-groups/"> African ancestry</a>,<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/ancestry-composition-update-china/"> Chinese ancestry,</a><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/23andme-adds-more-detail-for-indigenous-caribbean-ancestry"> Indigenous Caribbean ancestry,</a><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/23andme-adds-more-detail-for-spanish-and-portuguese-ancestry"> Spanish and Portuguese ancestry,</a><a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/indigenous-genetic-ancestry/"> Indigenous American ancestry</a>, and<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/23andme-adds-more-detail-for-customers-with-british-and-irish-ancestry"> British and Irish ancestry</a>.



23andMe customers can see their<a href="https://you.23andme.com/reports/ancestry_composition_hd/"> Ancestry Composition here</a>.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ancestry-timeline">Ancestry Timeline</h2>



23andMe&#8217;s ancestry reports sometimes reveal surprises. You might find hidden African or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, for instance. But 23andMe&#8217;s ancestry reports often augment what many of us already know about our heritage.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="750" height="1208" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ancestry-Timeline.jpg" alt="An image of 23andMe's Ancestry Timeline Feature on a mobile phone." class="wp-image-33323" style="width:295px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ancestry-Timeline.jpg 750w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ancestry-Timeline-186x300.jpg 186w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ancestry-Timeline-636x1024.jpg 636w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ancestry-Timeline-546x880.jpg 546w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ancestry-Timeline-733x1180.jpg 733w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /></figure>



Information gleaned from 23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service can sharply illuminate family lore passed down from those who came before. For instance, the <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/#toc-timeline">Ancestry Timeline feature</a> uses statistical methodologies to estimate how many generations ago your most recent ancestor from a specific population likely lived. The Ancestry Timeline allows customers to go back seven or more generations to discover how their unique ancestral tapestry was woven together.



So, it might indicate how recently your ancestor lived and who had 100 percent Nigerian, Spanish, or Portuguese ancestry. This can sometimes clarify our family histories, offering a more vivid connection to past generations.



In addition, connecting to at least one parent using 23andMe can tell you what ancestry you inherited from your mother and what came from your father. For instance, you can see whether a small percentage of Italian ancestry comes from your mother&#8217;s or your father&#8217;s side.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-family-tree">Family Tree</h2>



23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service also includes a <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/ancestry/a-family-tree/">Family Tree</a> that automatically builds a tree highlighting your close DNA relationships that are part of DNA Relatives.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="195" height="300" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile-195x300.jpg" alt="An image of 23andMe's Family Tree on a mobile phone." class="wp-image-33291" style="width:286px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile-195x300.jpg 195w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile-768x1179.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile-667x1024.jpg 667w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile-573x880.jpg 573w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile-769x1180.jpg 769w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Family-Tree-Mobile.jpg 946w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px" /></figure>



Customers can also manually add people who are not 23andMe customers or are not part of 23andMe DNA Relatives. It&#8217;s easy, convenient, and just a click away. To start your Family Tree, opt into DNA Relatives. This allows you to see and be seen by your genetic relatives on 23andMe. Then, the Family Tree’s algorithm populates a tree in one go with your predicted genetic relatives, so you can get a head start figuring out whether cousins and other relatives are on your mom’s or dad’s side of the family.



With an updated algorithm, 23andMe&#8217;s Family Tree predicts connections to your genetic relatives, so you don&#8217;t have to start from scratch. It&#8217;s a simple way for customers to explore their family ties, whether they are relatives they already know about or new ones. The hope is that the tool&#8217;s simplicity will help customers understand different family connections.



The joy of using 23andMe’s Ancestry Service is that it can introduce people to new relatives. With the simple Family Tree feature, you can see how these DNA relatives relate to you and where they are on your Family Tree.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dna-relatives">DNA Relatives</h2>



23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service connects people.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="957" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-957x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-33274" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-957x1024.jpg 957w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-280x300.jpg 280w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-768x822.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-822x880.jpg 822w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_-1102x1180.jpg 1102w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61EhXFDmQL._AC_SL1500_.jpg 1121w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 957px) 100vw, 957px" /></figure>



Along with discovering more about their heritage, 23andMe offers customers the opportunity to choose to connect with other<a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/#toc-family"> customers with whom they share DNA</a>.



<a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/#dnarelatives">23andMe&#8217;s DNA Relatives</a> tool looks at overlapping chromosome segments to help customers find or connect with close and distant relatives. For customers who choose to participate in DNA Relatives, it is optional; you must opt in to participate and can opt out of participating at any time. You can use it to help find new relatives in their family or reconnect with cousins.



The tool — which our scientists continue refining and improving— helps customers find new relatives and see how they are genetically connected. DNA Relatives allows customers to sort their relatives based on location, family names, how closely they are related, or the number of DNA segments they share. For DNA Relatives with whom you are sharing, you can also learn more about your genetic relationship by seeing a prediction of how you are related — such as via a second great-grandfather or great-grandmother.&nbsp;&nbsp;



If customers choose to participate in DNA Relatives, they can begin a conversation to learn together about their shared family histories.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-haplogroups">Haplogroups</h2>



Adding another dimension to those family connections, 23andMe also offers customers a chance to trace their maternal — and, in some cases, paternal — haplogroups.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="396" height="698" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Haplogroup-Image.png" alt="" class="wp-image-33324" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Haplogroup-Image.png 396w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Haplogroup-Image-170x300.png 170w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px" /></figure>



We say ‘some cases’ because the paternal haplogroup report only applies to genetically male people (individuals with a Y chromosome) or females whose close paternal male relatives (such as a father or brother) have tested on 23andMe. This is because paternal haplogroup assignments are made by tracing a person’s Y chromosome, which genetically female people do not inherit. That’s why the paternal haplogroup assignments are only available for some customers.



As our ancestors branched off into groups that migrated first throughout Africa and then out of Africa, genetic variants arose in those diverse groups, allowing us to trace lineages that descended from a common ancestor.



Maternal<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-and-you/23andmes-updated-maternal-haplogroup-report/"> haplogroups</a>, traced through users’ mitochondrial DNA, follow a customer&#8217;s maternal line and paternal haplogroups follow the path of the paternal line. Those haplogroups can offer customers insight into their place in the human story and, in some cases, meaningful<a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/#toc-map"> insight into their heritage</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-neanderthal-ancestry-report">Neanderthal Ancestry Report</h2>



23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service doesn&#8217;t just help you add to your family story. It connects you to the human story, including your genetic connection to our ancient human cousins, the Neanderthals.



Even though Neanderthals vanished about 40,000 years ago, their DNA lives on in us. 23andMe’s Neanderthal Ancestry report can show you how much your ancestry traces back to Neanderthals using SNPs across all your autosomes and X chromosome(s).



Looking back can be both fun and enlightening because your DNA offers a biological record that can reveal ancestral connections to a time when modern humans first migrated from Africa and encountered our early human cousins, the Neanderthals.



Using advanced science, our team of population geneticists, engineers, and designers built a fun and engaging feature. The Neanderthal Ancestry Report also shows whether you have more or fewer Neanderthal variants than other 23andMe customers and what traits could be influenced by your Neanderthal DNA variants, such as your likelihood of feeling angry when hungry or “hangry.”



Scientists still uncover what these early connections mean, the traits we may carry because of those encounters, and what other ancient human DNA may still linger in our genome.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-traits">Traits</h2>



Exploring your DNA offers deeper insight into more than just your ancestral origins and DNA relatives. It can also tell you about different traits that make you, you.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="957" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_-957x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-33276" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_-957x1024.jpg 957w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_-280x300.jpg 280w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_-768x822.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_-822x880.jpg 822w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_-1103x1180.jpg 1103w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/61AULupuf2L._AC_SL1500_.jpg 1125w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 957px) 100vw, 957px" /></figure>



The Ancestry Service includes more than 30 Traits Reports. Our Traits Reports are a fun way to explore how your DNA makes you unique, from your food preferences, like whether you enjoy salty versus sweet snacks, to physical features, like whether you are more or less likely to have cheek dimples, a unibrow, or freckles.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-more-with-23andme-premium-nbsp">More with 23andMe+ Premium&nbsp;</h2>



23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service includes innovative and scientifically robust features, more than 3,500 geographic regions, interactive features and ways to explore your connections to DNA Relatives. 



The Ancestry Service also opens the door to exploring your genetics further. You can seamlessly upgrade to <a href="https://www.23andme.com/membership/">23andMe+ Premium</a>, for more additional ancestry features, like Historical MatchesSM, advanced DNA Relative filters, and access to more DNA Relatives. You get all that as well as more insights into your health.



Are you still waiting to be a customer? Find out more about 23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service<a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/"> here</a>, or <a href="https://www.23andme.com/membership/">23andMe+ Premium here.</a>

Explore 23andMe’s Ancestry Service

It&#8217;d been 43 years since the last time Kim held her son.&nbsp;



In all those decades, she wondered what had happened after she&#8217;d given him up in a private adoption as a scared 15-year-old girl. Kim&#8217;s life turned out well: She married and has two wonderful daughters and grandkids, but the thought of her son and the questions never left her.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-good-person">A Good Person</h2>



Did he have a good life? Did his parents love him? Was he happy?



&#8220;You know, the only thing I could ever think about in my head was, &#8216;I just want him to be alive and be a good person,'&#8221; Kim said.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="284" height="300" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kimberly-Ramos-and-Jason-284x300.png" alt="Kim and her son Jason soon after meeting in person for the first time." class="wp-image-32850" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kimberly-Ramos-and-Jason-284x300.png 284w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kimberly-Ramos-and-Jason-768x813.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kimberly-Ramos-and-Jason-968x1024.png 968w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kimberly-Ramos-and-Jason-832x880.png 832w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kimberly-Ramos-and-Jason.png 1066w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 284px) 100vw, 284px" /></figure>



With the help of 23andMe and her daughter Jenny, Kim could answer those questions. Most importantly, she was able to embrace her son, Jason, for the first time and see the wonderful father and person he&#8217;d become.&nbsp;



Their first in-person meeting was at a gas station near Des Moines, a random halfway point between where Kim had been in Minnesota and Jason in Missouri. Kim found a friendly cashier to record the moment on her cellphone, and you can hear the cashier’s sweet comments while she’s filming.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-long-embrace">A Long Embrace</h2>



In the video, you can see their minute-long embrace in the aisles between the chips and soda fountain and the emotion welling up in them. Kim cries and pulls back to look into Jason&#8217;s eyes and touch his cheeks as the two — mother and son — soak in the moment.



For Jason, it was the first time he had looked at someone besides his kids who looked like him. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Kim and Jason First Hug" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ERbWCvwZ-Ao?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



&#8220;That was like, &#8216;Wow,'&#8221; he said.



Their story was unexpected for both of them. Jason always knew he had been adopted, but he wasn&#8217;t looking for his biological parents. Raised in a loving Midwest home with four siblings, who also were adoptees, Jason didn&#8217;t feel the need to go searching. He had questions, but he wasn&#8217;t looking.&nbsp;



Then, in late 2022, his wife, Elizabeth, gave him a 23andMe kit for Christmas. The two, who met and fell in love in high school, have three children and one grandchild. Elizabeth survived a breast cancer battle starting in 2019, and now in their 40s, the couple wanted to know more about their health.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-looking-for-health-information">Looking for Health Information</h2>



Jason, who had no family health history, thought it was vital for him and his children.



&#8220;If you grew up with a mom and dad and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandparents, you&#8217;d know if there was anything you should be aware of,&#8221; he said.



Jason used 23andMe to see if he had any genetic predispositions that would concern him or his three children and one grandson.



&#8220;So, the motivation was, &#8216; Let&#8217;s (learn more) for (the kids) sake,’&#8221; he said.



He did get some health information indicating a higher likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, but he&#8217;d also opted into DNA Relatives. Opening DNA Relatives, he saw someone matched as a predicted niece. He messaged her almost immediately, and he got a response.



&#8220;I&#8217;m not your niece. I&#8217;m your half-sister. Our mom&#8217;s name is Kimberly.&#8221;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-someone-searching-for-me">Someone Searching for Me</h2>



Kim&#8217;s daughter Jenny knew all about her mom giving up a son at 15. She was able to fill Jason in on his biological mom&#8217;s life.



&#8220;It was unbelievable, you know, because I wasn&#8217;t looking for one, and it happened so fast,&#8221; Jason said. &#8220;It was literally within a minute or two that she responded, which blew my mind.&#8221;



The two quickly connected on the phone and talked. Jenny was in Nebraska, and Jason was at home in Missouri. So much was loaded into Jenny&#8217;s response and their conversation on the phone.



&#8220;Like, I just had no idea that there was somebody out there looking for me, you know? So, yeah, it&#8217;s hard to imagine all that when you&#8217;re an adoptee,&#8221; Jason said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mom-are-you-sitting-down">Mom, Are You Sitting Down?</h2>



They&#8217;d talked in the evening, but Jenny waited until morning to call Kim.



&#8220;Mom, are you sitting down,&#8221; she said.



Kim, concerned something was terribly wrong, sat down and braced herself. Her husband stood by, concerned.



&#8220;Mom, I found your son,&#8221; Jenny said.



&#8220;We were both crying and talking,&#8221; Kim said. It took me a while to catch my breath, but as soon as I did, I called (Jason), and it&#8217;s been like it was all meant to be.&#8221;



They eventually arranged to meet in person. Kim and her husband now live in Florida but had been in Minnesota and were on a road trip to see their daughter in Nebraska, so she and Jason arranged to meet at a road stop gas station about midway.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-building-a-relationship">Building a Relationship</h2>



For Kim, getting to know Jason, learning about his upbringing, meeting his family, and having them embrace her has given her peace. She&#8217;s building relationships with them that are expanding her family. Jason and his wife have visited Kim and her husband in Florida. They all spent time with Jason&#8217;s family in Missouri.



&#8220;His entire family was there to meet us, and I cannot tell you how nervous I was to meet them, but I got the best hugs and love from everybody,&#8221; Kim said. &#8220;I&#8217;m so thankful these lovely people adopted Jason.&#8221;



They&#8217;re trying to build new family traditions, but Kim said there isn&#8217;t a rush.



&#8220;I don&#8217;t need to hurry anything,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We&#8217;re a family now. We&#8217;re together, and we&#8217;re not going anywhere.&#8221;



Jason knows that many adoptees never get the opportunity to meet their birth mom or build a relationship. Maybe they never connect; if they do, it isn&#8217;t a welcoming experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;



&#8220;I didn&#8217;t even realize anything was missing in my life, but now I feel complete.&#8221;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-discover-more-with-23andme">Discover more with 23andMe</h2>



Not everyone is searching for family, but <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">23andMe&#8217;s Ancestry Service </a>can help you learn your genetic connections to more than 3000 geographic regions or your connections to DNA Relatives with whom you share DNA. 



If you want to go deeper, <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry/">23andMe Health + Ancestry</a> gives you all the great insights of the Ancestry Service, plus more than 150 personalized reports with information to help you manage your health. 



Learn more about <a href="https://www.23andme.com/compare-dna-tests/">all that 23andMe offers here</a>.

A Mother and Son Reunion

Are you distantly related to the legendary, like the great musical genius Ludwig Van Beethoven? Perhaps you are genetically related to a high-status Viking woman from the 9th century who was buried in an ornate coffin with ornaments made of copper and a comb made from antlers? Maybe you&#8217;re linked to an African female Hunter-Gatherer buried with her bow and arrow and an ivory armband or a Caquetio man found with shards of decorated pottery at a site in Curaçao that dates back to before the first colonizers arrived in the Americas.



Woven into our DNA is a history thread linking us to our relatives, their stories, and the broader human story.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="459" height="698" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Phone_Historical-Matches.jpg" alt="A view of a Historical Match with a Viking Woman on an mobile phone screen." class="wp-image-32706" style="width:371px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Phone_Historical-Matches.jpg 459w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Phone_Historical-Matches-197x300.jpg 197w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 459px) 100vw, 459px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-historical-matches">Historical Matches</h2>



This week, 23andMe launches its first iteration of &#8220;Historical Matches.&#8221; This powerful and unprecedented new 23andMe+ Premium feature may connect you to one or more of 335 historical people across the globe. The technology works by identifying places in your genome where you share identical DNA inherited from a shared ancestor. This might be someone who lived long before you or your historical match. This creates a new way to learn more about your connections to the past. 



Over time, 23andMe plans to add more historical genomes to the feature, offering customers more opportunities to connect their stories to past epochs.&nbsp;



“23andMe&#8217;s Historical Matches is a technical breakthrough in our ability to accurately detect genetic connections between customers and historical individuals,” said Dan Chu, 23andMe&#8217;s Chief Product Officer. “It uses cutting-edge science to provide customers with connections to history that can be fun, and in some cases, deeply personal and profound.”



23andMe is the first leading DNA ancestry service to offer this level of genetic matching to relatives of historical peoples based on peer-reviewed published methods and deep data analysis.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-historical-dna">Historical DNA</h2>



The cutting-edge science used to create this feature developed over more than a decade as scientists, including those at 23andMe, have leveraged new technology for extracting and sequencing ancient or historical DNA from bones found at archeological sites or, in Beethoven&#8217;s case, from a lock of his hair.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="637" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306-637x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-32689" style="width:370px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306-637x1024.png 637w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306-187x300.png 187w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306-768x1234.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306-548x880.png 548w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306-735x1180.png 735w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/80cbf02d-2a4f-433e-9d52-71c1e557e03e-e1710785443306.png 945w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px" /></figure>



Pioneering work by Harvard Population geneticist <a href="https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/node/14">David Reich</a> and Nobel Prize winner <a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/staff/paabo">Svante Pääbo</a> at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology advanced our understanding of those ancient populations, human migration, and the interrelationship between our archaic human cousins, the Neanderthals, and modern humans.



Over the years, ancient or historical DNA information has upended our ideas of human history and migration. It&#8217;s also starting to offer insights into the origin of disease that could point toward new treatments.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-23andme-matches-to-historical-genomes">How 23andMe Matches to Historical Genomes</h2>



While previous ancestry features allowed customers to find out if they were genetically connected via their maternal or paternal lines, this new feature searches across the whole genome to connect members to historical individuals who lived hundreds or sometimes thousands of years ago by finding identical segments of DNA in their genomes.&nbsp;



The feature relies on publicly available data, scientific publications, and the 23andMe relative matching technology to link to these historical individuals.



Like 23andMe&#8217;s DNA Relatives feature, Historical Matches searches for shared segments of DNA between 23andMe+ Premium members and historical individuals. The feature identifies matches by finding segments and looking at the length of DNA that subscribers share with these historical individuals. Creating quality thresholds for how long a shared segment must be for a match makes it unlikely that there would be &#8220;false positive&#8221; matches.



Most 23andMe+ Premium members will have a match to one or more of these individuals. This offers them a connection to specific individuals from a particular time in history.&nbsp;



Most matches reveal very distant connections. Some matches may be much closer.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-who-are-these-historical-figures">Who Are These Historical Figures</h2>



Some of these genomes are from individuals who lived thousands of years ago. Others are just a few centuries old. Almost all are relatively anonymous, except one of the more recent figures, Beethoven, who died in 1827.&nbsp;



The Historical Matches feature includes details about each historical individual. These reports also offer details of what we know about them, how they lived, and, in some cases, how they died. The feature recounts the history of their time and the details of artifacts found with them.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="201" height="300" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card-201x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-32727" style="width:375px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card-201x300.jpg 201w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card-768x1144.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card-687x1024.jpg 687w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card-591x880.jpg 591w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card-792x1180.jpg 792w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/viking-warrior-card.jpg 1097w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px" /></figure>



Beethoven&#8217;s musical genius is well known. Now, we also know about his genetic health predispositions. Researchers extracted DNA from a lock of his hair. In 2023, scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00181-1#%20">published an analysis of Beethoven&#8217;s genome</a>, attempting to ascertain more about his progressive hearing loss, liver disease, and gastrointestinal issues.&nbsp;



Also in 2023, scientists from Harvard, the Smithsonian, and 23andMe conducted a historical DNA analysis of 27 enslaved and freed African Americans who labored at a Maryland iron furnace. The furnace operated during the American Revolution and into the 19th century. The study published in Science reveals a hidden history of people who lived and worked there. It also provides a technical and ethical benchmark for future studies of similar, largely forgotten burial sites. 23andMe&#8217;s new Historical Matches also include the genomes of nine individuals whose DNA was best preserved. Their names are lost to history. However, we know some of how difficult and, at times, brutal life was for the people who toiled at the furnace.*



Almost all 335 historical figures are anonymous, but these men, women, and children have a story to tell. Based on the original published studies, we&#8217;ve placed these individuals into different historical groups.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-1024x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-32699" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-880x880.jpeg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-271x271.jpeg 271w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-372x372.jpeg 372w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-574x574.jpeg 574w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07-980x980.jpeg 980w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/4d783a70-861b-4981-b62b-2f1e1c235c07.jpeg 1080w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-historical-groups">The Historical Groups</h2>



The Viking Age—The Vikings were Seafaring people of Scandinavia who made their indelible mark between the 8th and 11th centuries, known as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2688-8">the Viking Age</a>.&nbsp;



Catoctin Furnace Ironworkers—The Catoctin Furnace Iron Workers were enslaved and freed African American laborers who toiled there between the 18th and 19th centuries. The site is one of the earliest industrial sites in the United States. The furnace produced iron goods, including shells fired during the siege of Yorktown. It also made ammunition for the Continental Army.



Iron Age Taiwan — The<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03336-2"> Iron Age in Taiwan</a> refers to a period when the indigenous Atayal people began to use metals like bronze, iron, and silver.&nbsp;



The Ancient Eurasian Steppe—The Eurasian Steppe encompasses the massive grasslands and plains stretching from modern-day Hungary and Romania to Mongolia and China. It was also a crossroads for human migration and a hub for the spread of the Indo-European language.



The First Peoples of the Caribbean—This group includes indigenous people who lived in the region before colonization, between about 1,000 BC and 1500 CE, or just as Spanish explorers first encountered these communities. 



The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia — Most South Asian populations today descend from a mixture of two ancient populations that lived around 4,000 years ago. Scientists call these two populations “Ancestral South Indians” and “Ancestral North Indians.” Ancestral South Indians were also the product of two genetically distinct groups related to ancient Iranian farmers and southern Asian hunter-gatherers. That intermixing likely occurred around 2,000 BCE. Ancestral North Indians descended from pastoralists (herders) who lived in the eastern part of the Eurasian Steppe during the Bronze Age.&nbsp;



Late Stone Age and Iron Age South Africa—Many archaeological studies in Southern Africa focus on sites where our earliest human ancestors lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. However, there are also sites from the more recent past. There wasn’t a fixed date when the Late Stone Age ended in South Africa. However, the Iron Age began around 200 CE when Bantu-speaking people who experienced ironworking migrated to the region.&nbsp;



Ancient Northern Chinese Millet Farmers—The fertile basin between the Yellow and the West Liao rivers was once home to the world&#8217;s earliest complex agricultural societies. The communities there grew millet. Human migration from and through the region helped spread the cultivation of millet. Millet eventually became the staple crop of Northeast Asia, dating back almost 8,000 years.



The Ancient City of Beirut — Beirut, Lebanon has been inhabited for 5,000 years. It has been governed by many empires — Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Ottoman. Each of these empires left a cultural mark but not always a genetic one.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-discover-more-with-23andme">Discover more with 23andMe</h2>



23andMe+ Premium members can visit their Historical Matches to explore their connections to these figures.&nbsp;



Not yet a 23andMe+ Premium member? Find out more about 23andMe+ Premium offerings <a href="https://www.23andme.com/membership/">here</a>.



 *Are you an existing 23andMe customer interested in discovering if you have a strong genetic connection to historical individuals buried at Catoctin Furnace? Are you a 23andMe+ Premium or Total Health member? If you are not, you may be eligible to receive information about significant genetic connections you have to individuals buried at Catoctin Furnace at no additional cost. Please visit this <a href="https://you.23andme.com/user/consent/historical_matches_close_relatives/">page</a> for further information.

An illustration showing strand of DNA and a connection between a person and Beethoven

23andMe’s Historical Matches

Miracles happen; ask Brooke and Chris Martin, who&#8217;ve experienced more than one.



The first came almost 24 years ago, when the couple, with the help of in vitro fertilization (IVF), were able to conceive after years of trying unsuccessfully. In October 2000, the couple welcomed healthy twin boys — Matthew and Christopher — into the world.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-donation-and-then-a-prayer">Donation and then a Prayer</h2>



Knowing from their own experience how emotionally difficult infertility could be, Brooke and Chris donated embryos back to the fertility clinic instead of having the clinic discard them or donate them for scientific research. Brooke and Chris hoped the donation could help a couple who, like them, wanted children but couldn&#8217;t naturally have one.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="263" height="300" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait-263x300.png" alt="A portrait photo of Brooke Martin." class="wp-image-32554" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait-263x300.png 263w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait-768x878.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait-896x1024.png 896w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait-770x880.png 770w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait-1033x1180.png 1033w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Portrait.png 1045w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 263px) 100vw, 263px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Brooke Martin</figcaption></figure>



&#8220;I thought it would be so awesome to help a couple who couldn&#8217;t conceive and to be able to give them the gift of a child,&#8221; Brooke said.



But this was a &#8220;blind&#8221; donation, meaning they wouldn&#8217;t learn anything about whether another couple used their embryos. They didn&#8217;t know anything about what happened to the embryos.



&#8220;I had always prayed that (the embryos) could help someone else,&#8221; Brooke said. &#8220;I&#8217;d hoped they&#8217;d end up in a loving home… but for 20 years, I&#8217;d wondered what happened to them.&#8221;&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-dna-connection">A DNA Connection</h2>



In 2021, another miracle, Brooke and Chris learned what happened to three of those embryos. 



Those three embryos they donated back to the fertility clinic gave another couple, Trey and Becky Monroe, the chance to be parents to triplets — Lauren, Thomas, and Peter.&nbsp;



That was a miracle for Trey and Becky. She wanted nothing more than to be a mom, Trey said. The children were a triple blessing. They also wondered a little about who had donated them.



When he and Becky asked their fertility doctor about the donor, the doctor &#8220;sort of chuckled,&#8221; Trey said, &#8220;(The doctor said) &#8216;they&#8217;re a lot like you two.'&#8221;



The couples were a lot alike. Along with sharing roots in Tennessee, Trey and Brooke work in mental health. They all have a solid Christian faith and a deep family connection. Then, there are the similarities between their children. You would expect some since they are biological siblings, so they look alike. But when Brooke first saw a photo of Thomas, it still made her gasp at how much she looked like her sons.



&#8220;There was no doubt that&#8217;s our kid,&#8221; Brooke said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-harmony">Harmony</h2>



But it wasn&#8217;t just how similar they all looked; there were also odd things like how Matt and Thomas walked with the same athletic swagger, and then there was Lauren and Chris&#8217;s interest in music and singing. 



A video of Lauren and Chris harmonizing as they sang a pitch-perfect rendition of the song &#8220;Speechless.&#8221; 



&#8220;We sound the same,&#8221; Lauren said. &#8220;It&#8217;s crazy.&#8221;



The clip of the two singing encapsulates both literally and figuratively how these strangers, who are also biological siblings, immediately fell into sync and harmonized as a family.



The story&#8217;s tragedy is that Becky didn&#8217;t live to see it. She died about a year before the two families made this connection.&nbsp;



However, the story of how they all found each other with the help of 23andMe has received regional and national media attention. For Brooke, it&#8217;s a story about faith and family, nature and nurture, and the good that comes from allowing another family to have a child. It&#8217;s also expanding how she thinks of family, she said.



These two families might not have joined had Trey and Becky&#8217;s son Thomas not asked for a 23andMe kit for his 18th birthday. There was a little history there. Just a few years before, his dad, Trey, who&#8217;d been adopted, used DNA testing to find his own biological family, ultimately meeting his siblings and birth mom. 



&#8220;For me, it was a positive experience,&#8221; said Trey. &#8220;I know it&#8217;s not always the case.&#8221;



Trey didn&#8217;t want to stand in the way of his kids having that same opportunity.



Thomas eagerly tested. He wasn&#8217;t necessarily looking to find family but was more interested in learning about his biological family background and whether there were any potential health issues he may have inherited. 



&#8220;I wondered if maybe we were something other than Scotch-Irish like my dad,&#8221; Thomas said. &#8220;We weren&#8217;t.&#8221;



While they did find some interesting things about their health, what popped out was a connection to a cousin named Tod — the first biological relative the triplets identified. Thomas reached out, explaining who he was. It was a lucky break because Tod was a family historian who&#8217;d extensively worked on the family&#8217;s genealogy. He is Brooke&#8217;s cousin, and they quickly made the connection.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="734" data-id="32558" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins-1024x734.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-32558" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins-1024x734.jpg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins-300x215.jpg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins-768x551.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins-880x631.jpg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins-1180x846.jpg 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lauren-Twins.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Brooke and her twin boys.</figcaption></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="866" height="1024" data-id="32557" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets-866x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-32557" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets-866x1024.jpg 866w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets-254x300.jpg 254w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets-768x908.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets-744x880.jpg 744w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets-998x1180.jpg 998w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Becky-Triplets.jpg 1448w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Becky Monroe with her triplets.</figcaption></figure>
</figure>



Soon, Thomas exchanged emails with Brooke and Chris, but he waited to tell them that it wasn&#8217;t just him, that he was one of three siblings. He was worried that the news that they were biological parents of triplets might be too overwhelming. When he eventually told them, they were more than overjoyed. Brooke said she was shaking with excitement, and more than that, she was smitten with the idea that now she didn&#8217;t just have sons but a daughter as well.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-siblings-meet-for-the-first-time">Siblings Meet for the First Time</h2>



Brooke and Chris also needed to talk to Thomas&#8217;s dad, Trey. They wanted to stay within the bounds, especially since Becky (Trey’s wife and Thomas’ mom) had only passed the year before. 



Trey sent a note back to them that just made their bond stronger, saying:



&#8220;Thank you for the gift of my children. That&#8217;s all my wife ever wanted.&#8221;&nbsp;



Since then, the two families have built a deeper relationship. They&#8217;ve had chances to meet in person, even going to a large family reunion. Lauren said it&#8217;s been beneficial for her to establish a relationship with Brooke after losing her mother. She&#8217;s always felt a little outnumbered as the only girl in the family.



The two have become quite close.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="472" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2-1024x472.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-32551" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2-1024x472.jpg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2-300x138.jpg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2-768x354.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2-880x406.jpg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2-1180x544.jpg 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Brooke-Lauren-2.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Lauren with Brooke.</figcaption></figure>



The families have had a lot of time to bond and build relationships. Brooke hopes that their story might also encourage more of those with frozen embryos to donate them to other couples trying to conceive. She&#8217;s tracking the experience of connecting these two families on a Facebook page called &#8220;Love Multiplied,&#8221; she is almost finished writing a book about it all.  Who knows, there may be another chapter in this story; there were five other embryos that Brooke and Chris donated.



&#8220;I believe there are more out there,&#8221; Brooke said.

The Miracle of Connection

Kayla Milligan has always wanted a brother or sister. As a little kid, she&#8217;d pester her parents.&nbsp;



About a year ago, the 24-year-old got what she wanted and a lot more — not one sibling but more than 70.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-dna-surprise">A DNA Surprise</h6>



&#8220;It was a big surprise, but at the same time, it turned out to be really cool,&#8221; said Kayla. &#8220;So, there are 77 half siblings in total, so far. The craziest part is that so many of us get along.&#8221;



Kayla, it turned out, was donor-conceived. Her parents hadn&#8217;t told her and never intended to tell her. In the summer of 2022, Kayla used 23andMe to learn about her ancestry. Her dad had said the family had some Dutch roots, and she was curious.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="761" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-761x1024.jpeg" alt="A photo of Kayla" class="wp-image-32151" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-761x1024.jpeg 761w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-223x300.jpeg 223w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-768x1033.jpeg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-654x880.jpeg 654w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-877x1180.jpeg 877w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-scaled.jpeg 1903w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 761px) 100vw, 761px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kayla used 23andMe to learn about her ancestry and discovered she was donor conceived and had dozens of half siblings.</figcaption></figure>



When Kayla got her reports, she looked at her ancestry, but also, after opting into the <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">DNA Relatives feature</a>, she looked at who she shared DNA with. She matched with about two dozen individuals, none of whom she recognized.



DNA Relatives predicted that these matches were half-siblings. She also matched with someone predicted to be her biological father, a man by the name of Willis, who is not her father. 



Her story is not too uncommon as <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/29-siblings-and-counting">more and more people who were donor conceived</a>, use genetic testing to learn more about themselves including potential health information that they might not learn otherwise.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-donor-conceived">Donor Conceived</h6>



When she saw this, her first thought was that it was a mix-up. But after talking to her mom, she learned the predicted relationship was correct. The news didn&#8217;t so much change her feelings of love toward her parents but changed how she looked at herself. Although her mom had kept this a secret for all these years, Kayla remembered a few things her mom had said over the years, alluding to the difficulty of getting pregnant.&nbsp;



&#8220;My mom had told me multiple times that I was almost a &#8216;petri dish baby,'&#8221; Kayla said.&nbsp;



But she&#8217;d never been told that her mom and dad, desperate to have a child, had turned to a clinic.



&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, but I think back in the day, there was a stigma about using a donor,&#8221; Kayla said.



Although she&#8217;s learned that he is not biologically related to her, how she sees her dad hasn&#8217;t changed.



&#8220;He&#8217;s still my dad,&#8221; she said.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-shared-dna-and-shared-traits">Shared DNA and Shared Traits</h6>



After talking to her parents, Kayla reached out to her newfound siblings. Each had been on their journey of discovery. One of them created a spreadsheet to keep track of each new brother and sister. As new siblings discover the connection, they&#8217;re added to the list. In talking to her siblings, Kayla learned that it wasn&#8217;t just the 20 half-siblings she found using 23andMe but that she had at least 77. The siblings have a chat group for updates and news. With each new sibling, more information is added to the spreadsheet: names, ages, and contact information. They&#8217;ve also added details about allergies and personality and important health information. It is vital for those trying to correct their own family health history.&nbsp;



Her siblings range in age from about 16 to 29 years old, but the donor also has two kids with his wife, who are 8 and 11.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville-1024x768.jpeg" alt="A photo of Kayla and about 16 of her half siblings when they met in Nashville." class="wp-image-32152" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville-880x660.jpeg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville-1180x885.jpeg 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kayla-and-her-half-siblings-Nashville.jpeg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kayla meeting some of her half siblings in Nashville. She is in the front row in the red dress.</figcaption></figure>



This past July, Kayla went to Nashville, where many of her siblings gathered so they could meet in person. Several siblings live in the Northeast, closer to where she calls home. Kayla has become particularly close with a half-sister who lives in Toronto and is drawn to several other siblings she&#8217;s met.



Coming together in Nashville also allowed Kayla to see many people with whom she shares the same cheekbones, blue eyes, long arms, and &#8220;free-spirited open mindedness.&#8221;



&#8220;It was very crazy to see everyone together like that,&#8221; she said of the meeting in Nashville. &#8220;You&#8217;re seeing all these people who don&#8217;t just look like you, but who share the same expressions, mannerisms, or ways of speaking or with similar personalities. It&#8217;s shocking. I mean the power of genetics over the environment to shape us.&#8221;



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-birth-father">Birth Father</h6>



Along with getting to know several of her brothers and sisters, she also learned a bit more about her birth father. When she first saw a photo of him and the physical resemblance, she said there was no question that he was her biological father.&nbsp;



Kalya learned that as a college and graduate school student on the West Coast and East Coast, he&#8217;d donated to different sperm banks. Now a philosophy professor at a college in California, he has been open to meeting the donor kids who have contacted him, even having them over to dinner to meet his family.&nbsp;



&#8220;He won&#8217;t force a relationship with anyone, but if a sibling reaches out to him personally, he will make an effort to be part of their lives, too,&#8221; Kayla said.



Although he never expected to sire so many kids or that they would end up contacting him, he has tried to share information about himself and his family, particularly his health history.&nbsp;



That was important for Kayla; she was able to learn about the conditions in his family. But for her, it&#8217;s been the connections to her siblings that have been the most profound. Seeing others with an uncanny resemblance to her, who shared so much genetically but were strangers, was jarring. The experience has also required difficult conversations, and it has sometimes been challenging.



&#8220;My life will never be the same after this experience, in the best way, and it&#8217;s all thanks to this little test,&#8221; Kayla said. &#8220;I absolutely prefer the truth over anything falsified. Ultimately, I love learning more about myself and discovering new things, progressing to knowing who I am and where I come from.&#8221;

A photo of Kayla and about 16 of her half siblings when they met in Nashville.

An Only Child’s DNA Surprise

A name, a letter, and a necklace, that&#8217;s all Julia had of her birth mother for 22 years.



&#8220;Those always have been my only connection to my roots,&#8221; Julia said.



A social worker told her that her birth mother had returned to El Salvador, and Julia didn&#8217;t ever have much hope of learning more.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">A Turning Point</h6>



That all changed late last year after Julia used 23andMe, first connecting with an older brother she didn&#8217;t know. Although she knew that her birth mother had two other children, a boy and a girl, Julia was initially skeptical that he was indeed her brother. They exchanged some messages. Julia learned the person who matched as a potential half-brother was also from a town just 20 minutes from her own, so it didn&#8217;t quite mesh with what she thought she knew about her birth family.



&#8220;Then he said, &#8216;do you still have the necklace that our mother gave you?'&#8221;



It was something no one else would have known about; it immediately stirred something deep in Julia. She began to cry.



It all happened very quickly after that. Julia met her birth mother and four other siblings through her newfound older brother, Melvin.



&#8220;That&#8217;s a huge turning point as an adopted kid,&#8221; said Julia, something she&#8217;d hoped for but never expected would happen.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-1024x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31416" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-150x150.png 150w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-300x300.png 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-768x768.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-880x880.png 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-1180x1180.png 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-271x271.png 271w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-372x372.png 372w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-574x574.png 574w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency-980x980.png 980w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Talking-to-Adoption-agency.png 1302w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Julia leaving a message with a social worker asking about her adoption.</figcaption></figure>



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forgive-me">Forgive Me</h6>



It might have never taken place if Julia hadn&#8217;t used 23andMe, which had only happened because of a class project she was working on at college and the help of her instructor.



For years her connection to her birth family, and roots, was the necklace and the letter and the little things she knew about her birth mother, her name, Elsy. She even had an old photo of her birth mom, sitting with Julia&#8217;s parents.



The letter is folded carefully in an envelope Julia keeps in a little box laminated with a 10-colon Salvadorian banknote. In neatly worded Spanish, Julia&#8217;s birth mom, just 20 at the time, tried to explain why she&#8217;d given up her daughter. She didn&#8217;t know what else to do.



&#8220;My child, first off, I want to tell you that I love you. I love you so much,&#8221; the letter says. &#8220;I looked for other ways but could not find any. My love, I am a poor woman without luck. It&#8217;s always gone bad for me. I wish that you can forgive me one day, I may not be able to forgive myself.&#8221;



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Family is Family</h6>



Mastering Spanish and learning about El Salvador had been a way for Julia to connect to her birth family and her roots. It was something that her parents encouraged.



Julia always knew she&#8217;d been adopted because her parents never hid that from her. Her parents, Matt and Kristen, couldn&#8217;t have children &#8220;the natural way,&#8221; as Kristen says. So, they decided to adopt. Julia&#8217;s sister, Audrey, was also adopted. So, there was never a time that Julia or her sister didn&#8217;t know.



But being adopted didn&#8217;t change how Julia felt about her sister or her parents.



&#8220;My family is just my family,&#8221; Julia says.



It&#8217;s not just her parents and her sister, Julia is bonded with the sprawling collection of her cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Of course, this is her family, but she was always curious about where she came from.



Julia was just nine days old when she was adopted. And Matt and Kristen had made a point of meeting Julia&#8217;s birth mom. They even have a photo of them together on Julia&#8217;s adoption day. The idea was that they would maintain that connection. They&#8217;d hoped that Elsy would be able to remain in Julia&#8217;s life, but it didn&#8217;t work out that way. After the adoption agency closed, they were told that Elsy had returned to El Salvador. They lost that connection.



In its place, Matt and Kristen ensured that Julia understood her Salvadorian roots, and encouraged her to learn more about the culture and the language.



&#8220;She embraced the culture a lot more and was in tune with it… as she got older, it became important to her to find her birth family,&#8221; her dad said.



But Julia was always curious to find out more.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="850" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results-1024x850.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31415" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results-1024x850.png 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results-300x249.png 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results-768x637.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results-880x730.png 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results-1180x979.png 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Waiting-to-Open-Results.png 1682w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Julia getting ready to open her 23andMe results.</figcaption></figure>



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Barely Contained Excitement</h6>



Julia had twice tried to learn more.



First when she was 16 and then again at 18.



Both times she&#8217;d learned little of anything new. Finally, at 18 she&#8217;d reached out to the social worker and was given some minor details about her mother and her mother&#8217;s circumstances at the time of the adoption. There was nothing more than that.



Julia sought connection through understanding more about El Salvador. But she was equally taken with other cultures. She&#8217;s part of a Bollywood dance team and connects with India. Being a Latina in a predominantly white suburb, she looked for and found connections and community in many different ways, whether it was dance, music, or friend groups.



As part of one of her classes at Suffolk University, taught by the Emmy-award-winning documentary filmmaker<a href="https://www.jeremyslevine.com/about"> Jeremy Levine</a>, Julia decided to create a video project around her adoption journey. Professor Levine suggested Julia do a DNA test as part of the project. So she did, but she thought what she&#8217;d learn would be more about her ethnicity.



It all happened very quickly after she sent off her test in November. A day after Thanksgiving, Julia got an email that her reports were in. Again, she thought the reports would tell her the mix of her ancestry. Instead, she was stunned by what she learned.



&#8220;I thought I knew what it was going to be, but it was for the project, so I videoed myself opening the (reports),&#8221; she said.



In the video, she says she hadn’t expected to get her reports so quickly.



&#8220;This wasn&#8217;t supposed to happen for another two weeks so I&#8217;m not prepared at all. I set the camera up as fast as I could,&#8221; she said.



She rattles off the percentages of her Ancestry Composition, &#8220;42 percent Southern European, 35 percent Indigenous, 16 percent Sub-Saharan African.&#8221;



And then she notes with interest her increased likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes.



Then with a sort of &#8220;ah ha&#8221; expression, she says, &#8220;increased likelihood to weigh less than average.&#8221; And with that, she encircles her skinny wrist and shows it to the camera.



&#8220;Likely blue or green eyes,&#8221; she says. &#8220;And I have green eyes.&#8221;



&#8220;Ooh oo wait,&#8221; she says, shaking her head with emotion. She gasps and puts her hands on her face taking in a breath.



&#8220;I have… Oh my God, I&#8217;m shaking,&#8221; she starts crying.



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="873" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction-1024x873.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31414" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction-1024x873.png 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction-300x256.png 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction-768x654.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction-880x750.png 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction-1180x1005.png 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Julia-Reaction.png 1244w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Julia after learning she&#8217;d found her biological brother.</figcaption></figure>



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">the world is so small </h6>



It all was so unexpected. It was, as Julia said, &#8220;getting deeper than I thought it would.&#8221;



Not only did she have an older half-brother, Melvin, but he was in Massachusetts, and he lived in a small town only about 30 minutes away.



She&#8217;d contacted him within an hour of finding the match, and they exchanged messages.



How close they&#8217;d been to each other all this time. Julia said her life has always felt like it was filled with coincidences and synchronicity. For example, until a year ago, she&#8217;d never worn the necklace her birth mother had given her out of fear that she might lose it, but then all of a sudden had the urge to wear it all the time.



Her first communication from her brother, Melvin, was through 23andMe: &#8220;Hi! I can&#8217;t believe this has happened. I think I know who you are. Yes, I&#8217;d love to get to know you too. This world is so small.&#8221;



Julia marveled at how close he and her birth mother had been all this time, they live in small towns in Massachusetts that are about 30 minutes from each other. He worked at the same hospital as Julia&#8217;s adopted mom, and one of her half-sisters, Nansy, also works there. Her birth mom works at a sandwich shop that Julia and her family have been to many times. Her older half-brother went to the school that Julia’s father once taught at although he attended class there a year or two after her dad went to teach somewhere else.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Julia&#039;s DNA Story" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Haawaw9pr4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><code>To see Julias full video project go here: https://youtu.be/rWG1lCbwM68</code></figcaption></figure>



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-life-altering">LIFE ALTERING</h6>



She wonders how many times they have crossed paths.



&#8220;Maybe it happened all the time, and we never even realized it,&#8221; she said.



Soon thereafter, they made plans to meet at a mall.



&#8220;I&#8217;m about to meet my brother who grew up with my birth mother and five other siblings,&#8221; Julia said in the video she made as she prepared to meet her brother for the first time.



And after meeting him, Julia met her birth mom along two of her five other half siblings. Along with her older brother Melvin and older sister Nansy, are sister Dariana, and two younger brothers Jacob and Levi. At their first meeting Julia and Elsy hugged and cried and looked deep into each other&#8217;s faces. Julia, her newfound siblings, and her birth mom, are now trying to build a relationship. Her adoptive parents are equally emotional about the fact that Julia has made this connection. They cried at the news when she told them that she&#8217;d found her birth mom.



&#8220;Now it&#8217;s like I have closure about how I came into this world and who I am as a person… not just my own family, but my own identity as well,&#8221; Julia said, trying to put into words the complicated feelings she has. &#8220;Overall, most insane and incredible life-altering thing in the world.&#8221;

A photo of Julia as a smiling young girl.

A Name and a Necklace

Some types of close relatives, like aunt, uncle, half-sibling, nephew, niece, grandparent, and grandchild have very similar patterns of shared DNA, making predicting those relationships from DNA alone difficult. That’s why some customers might see someone incorrectly labeled as one of these relationships. To help improve detection of these relationships, 23andMe is now using a new technique that analyzes DNA from full siblings.



23andMe, like other companies, uses shared segments of DNA to detect customers’ relationships to each other. But unlike other companies, we also combine information from every pair of relatives using 23andMe’s <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/large-human-pedigrees/">Bonsai software</a>. In addition to <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/23andmes-latest-feature-automates-genetic-family-trees/">building your 23andMe Family Tree</a>, Bonsai uses segments from multiple pairs of relatives at once, allowing it to make a better prediction than if we only analyzed you and each of your relatives one by one.&nbsp;



Still, no way of estimating relationships from DNA is perfect, and that’s true even for close relatives.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Relationship</td><td>Amount of DNA shared (95% confidence interval)*</td><td>Age distribution 23andMe uses (95% confidence interval)</td></tr><tr><td>Half-sibling</td><td>~19.8-30.2%</td><td><style>
span:after {
content: "\2264";}
</style>
<style>
span:after {
content: "\2264";}
</style> 17.4 year age difference</td></tr><tr><td>Avuncular (aunt/uncle- nephew/niece)</td><td>~20.3-29.7%</td><td>17.5 &#8211; 39.3 year age difference</td></tr><tr><td>Grandparental</td><td>~18.7-31.3%</td><td>45.3 &#8211; 67.7 year age difference</td></tr></tbody></table><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">* Calculated using shared segments from the autosomes (i.e., excluding the X and Y chromosomes) from <a href="https://github.com/williamslab/ped-sim">simulated relatives</a>.</figcaption></figure>



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Using ages or shared parents to distinguish relative types</h6>



Telling these relative types apart is especially difficult because the amount of DNA each type shares is almost identical (see the above table). Because of this similarity, Bonsai relies on customers’ self-reported ages to make a decision about their relationships.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Even though general age differences exist between these relative types—half-siblings are typically closer in age than aunt-nephew or uncle-niece relatives—there are always families that don’t follow these trends. In such families, Bonsai is prone to making mistakes. For example, as shown in the above table, Bonsai will often consider half-siblings who were born 20 years apart as avuncular or it will confuse a grandmother for an aunt if the grandmother is less than 40 years older than her grandchild.



It’s worth noting that if the parent who links two half-siblings, a grandparent and grandchild, or an aunt/uncle and niece/nephew is a 23andMe customer, Bonsai would detect this and get the relationship right in nearly all cases.&nbsp;



For example, in the figure below, if we had data for Ava and Beau’s parents, Bonsai would almost always infer their mystery relative correctly as the aunt of the two siblings. Still, not all families have these parents or other informative relatives tested, and in the end, Bonsai predicts a significant fraction of half-sibling and avuncular relatives (aunt/uncle or niece and nephews) incorrectly when it relies on age data alone to distinguish between them (see the table near the end of this post).



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mystery-Relative.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31115" width="650" height="410" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mystery-Relative.png 856w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mystery-Relative-300x189.png 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mystery-Relative-768x484.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">On average, people share ~25 percent of their DNA with half-siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, or grandchildren. Based only on a DNA comparison of a pair of relatives, it is difficult to distinguish between these relationships and pinpoint the correct one.&nbsp; But there&#8217;s a simple trick to help narrow down the correct relationship when one person in the pair has a full sibling: If—at the same location in their genomes—a pair of siblings share identical segments of DNA with another relative, and those siblings do not share any DNA at those locations with each other, this often means that the relative is an aunt or an uncle to the siblings. Having more than 90 cM of such locations almost always means the relative is an aunt or uncle.</figcaption></figure>



A new approach for distinguishing aunts and uncles from other relative types



The ambiguities between these relationships would be impossible to fully resolve except for the fact that information from shared DNA segments can be combined and their positions analyzed across multiple relatives.&nbsp;



In the case of distinguishing avuncular from half-sibling or grandparental relationship types, we can leverage information carried by DNA segments that are shared between full siblings. Full siblings are related through both of their parents, and this leads them to have a somewhat unique pattern of sharing: an average of 25 percent of their DNA is contained in fully identical segments. This is roughly 880 centiMorgans in 23andMe customers. (<a href="https://isogg.org/wiki/CentiMorgan">CentiMorgans</a>, or “cM,” are a unit of measuring lengths of DNA.) In other words, full siblings have certain sections of their chromosomes where they each inherited a matching segment of DNA from their mom and, at the same location, a matching segment of DNA from their dad. With such high fully identical sharing rates, genetic relationship prediction methods rarely make mistakes when labeling full siblings.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">A Technique for Detecting Aunts and Uncles</h6>



Researchers at Cornell University used this signature of fully identical segments from full siblings to build <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929718301691">a technique for detecting aunts and uncles</a> of a pair of siblings even if their parent has not had their DNA tested. 



The idea is to find places where the shared segments between siblings Ava and Beau and their aunt or uncle indicate that the siblings’ parent has a fully identical segment with the aunt or uncle. If this recovers a lot of fully identical shared segments, we can be quite confident that the aunt or uncle is an aunt or uncle and not a half-sibling, niece, nephew, grandparent, or grandchild.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Full siblings </h6>



Consider the figure below that again shows DNA from the full siblings Ava and Beau, their father Tom, and the father&#8217;s full sister, Maria. In the highlighted regions, Ava and Beau inherited DNA from different copies of their father’s chromosomes: Ava inherited DNA from their father’s mom and Beau from their father’s dad. Because of this (and because they inherited DNA from different copies of their mother’s chromosomes), Ava and Beau have no shared segments with each other in the chromosomal region with a box around it. 



This fact allows us to reason about whether, in the boxed region, the untested father had a fully identical segment with Maria (the potential aunt). Sure enough, in this location, Maria is fully identical to Tom (has the same DNA as him) and has a shared segment to each of the siblings. All this allows us to conclude that, in this region, the father does have a fully identical segment to Maria, and, with enough of these present, the updated version of Bonsai would conclude that Maria is Ava and Beau’s aunt and not any of the other relationship types with similar amounts of shared segments.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="776" height="1024" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer-776x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31116" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer-776x1024.png 776w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer-227x300.png 227w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer-768x1013.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer-667x880.png 667w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer-894x1180.png 894w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Fully-Identical-Graphic-Explainer.png 952w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 776px) 100vw, 776px" /></figure>



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Can other close relatives have this pattern of shared DNA?</h6>



Importantly, neither a grandparent, grandchild, half-sibling, niece, or nephew is expected to have fully identical sharing with Ava and Beau’s parent, or with the parent of any pair of siblings. The key reason is that fully identical regions occur at places where two people inherited the same DNA from both their parents.&nbsp;



Because full siblings share the same two parents, fully identical regions arise most frequently between them. You can see this above by looking at Ava and Beau’s parent Tom and his full sibling Maria. A half-sister of Ava and Beau through Tom should not share fully identical segments with Tom because she would have inherited only one chromosome from him—and the other from her mother. That mother will typically be unrelated to Tom and so will not share DNA with him. Similarly, Ava’s grandson would inherit Ava’s DNA, but only on one of his chromosomes, making fully identical sharing with Ava’s father Tom impossible in nearly all cases. By the same token, Ava’s grandmother (Tom’s mother) shares DNA with Tom on only one chromosome, and Ava and Beau’s nephew, being Tom’s grandchild, could only inherit DNA from one of Tom’s chromosomes at any location.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Fully Identical Segments</h6>



Even though this technique&nbsp; is designed to detect aunts and uncles, when a half-sibling does not have these implied fully identical segments, that provides evidence that they are half-siblings, and this can override the age-based relationship detection in Bonsai.&nbsp;



For example, if two full siblings had a half-sister that is &gt;20 years older than each of them, the old version of Bonsai would predict the half-sister as the aunt of the two full siblings (assuming other close relatives such as the shared parent had not done a 23andMe test). However, the latest Bonsai version would look for implied fully identical segments, and, finding few or none of these, it would conclude that a half-sibling relationship is more likely than aunt. Therefore ages have less influence on the Bonsai relationship prediction for these classes of relationships (half-sibling, avuncular, and grandparent-grandchild) than before this new release.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Incorporating this technique into Bonsai greatly improves relative prediction accuracy</h6>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Relationship to full sibling pair</td><td>Percent correct without IBD011</td><td>Percent correct with IBD011</td></tr><tr><td>Aunt/uncle</td><td>98.7%</td><td>~100%</td></tr><tr><td>Half-sibling</td><td>75.6%</td><td>83.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Grandparent</td><td>97.9%</td><td>98.6%</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



We have incorporated this technique (which researchers called IBD011 for reasons described in the summary figure below) into the latest version of Bonsai. The table above shows the percent of relatives that Bonsai correctly infers both without the IBD011 signal and with it. Bonsai does very well in both settings, but always much better when using IBD011, so it now works better at telling apart half-sibling, avuncular, and grandparent-grandchild relatives.&nbsp;



<h6 class="wp-block-heading">Here’s how you can apply this updated Bonsai method to your relative predictions:</h6>



You can use this updated Bonsai method by rebuilding your family tree. To do this, you can request a recalculation of your tree through a link in the DNA Relatives FAQ page, in the question called “<a href="https://you.23andme.com/tools/relatives/faq/#how_do_i_recalculate">How do I recalculate my tree?</a>”&nbsp;



The 23andMe database currently includes over 2 million customers who could be affected by this update, which translates to many thousands of relationships potentially changed. For those of you with a full sibling and a predicted half-sibling, aunt, or uncle, the updated Bonsai may produce a different (and more trustworthy) tree.&nbsp;



Keep in mind that unfortunately your tree annotations don’t carry over when you rerun Bonsai. Still, some of you will see changes and the predictions Bonsai now makes are much more reliable for the close relationship types discussed here.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-is-ibd011">What is IBD011?</h6>



On average, people share ~25% of their DNA with their half-siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, or grandchildren, among a few other less common relationship types.&nbsp;



Based only on a DNA comparison of a pair of relatives, it can be very difficult to distinguish between these relationships and pinpoint the correct one.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="756" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image-1024x756.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31117" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image-1024x756.png 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image-300x221.png 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image-768x567.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image-880x650.png 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image-1180x871.png 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IBD011-Image.png 1390w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



But there&#8217;s a simple trick to help narrow down the correct relationship when one person in the pair has a full sibling: If — at the same location in their genomes — siblings share identical segments of DNA with a relative, and those siblings do not share any DNA at those locations with each other, this almost always means that the relative is an aunt or an uncle.&nbsp;

New Algorithm Cleans Up 23andMe Family Trees

By Jodee Prouse
I believe nothing is more important than family. But what do I mean when I say family? For me, it’s about more than the DNA we share. A surprise in my 23andMe report only made that belief stronger. 
What all this means for me is complicated by the fact that I’m estranged from members of my own immediate family. My relationships with my dad, my mom, and my sister broke down due to alcoholism and continued unhealthy family patterns. 
Our problems with alcohol were deep, starting with my dad’s drinking, which led to my parent’s divorce when I was eight. And it was alcohol addiction and mental illness that took my brother Brett —who also happened to be my greatest friend— when he took his own life in 2012.
For many reasons, including my own happiness and well-being and that of my husband and our own two sons, I made the painful decision to continue to love my father, mother, and sister from afar. I ceased all contact with them more than ten years ago.
<h6>Looking at Family Connections</h6>
So why did I decide to use 23andMe and peer into the genetics that our family shares?
<div id="attachment_29684" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-29684" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Jodee-her-brother-300x236.webp" alt="Jodee, as a young girl, and her baby brother Brett" width="300" height="236" class="size-medium wp-image-29684" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Jodee-her-brother-300x236.webp 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Jodee-her-brother.webp 600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Jodee and her little brother Brett, soon after his birth.</div>
In part, it’s because I’m drawn to the idea of understanding more about my connections to generations past. I have always known about my dad’s side and their roots in England. But I knew little about my mother’s side of the family. Growing up, I only met my mom’s parents, her sister, and that sister’s children, my two cousins. I never met, nor did my mother mention any of her aunts, uncles, cousins, or even grandparents. They were a mystery to me.
After sending in my sample to 23andMe late last year, I was so eager to get the reports I felt like a kid waiting to open presents on Christmas morning. When I finally opened my reports, I was actually a little letdown. The results confirmed that my ancestry on both sides of the family was mostly British. I opted in and looked over my health reports, too, which were interesting, but the unexpected information didn’t come until later. 
<h6>A Shocking Discovery</h6>
Just a few weeks after those initial results, I got an email alerting me to a message. I had opted in to participate in DNA Relatives and someone with whom I shared DNA had sent me a message. I logged in to read it.
“Hey Jodee, My name’s James Dodds and 23andMe says that we may be half-siblings,” the message began. “My dad, Jim Dodds, was from Ponoka, Canada, so I am wondering if that’s the connection. He was born in 1946.”
I’d never heard the name “Dodds” before, but Ponoka is near where I live now, in Alberta, and  near where my mother was born and grew up. I was in complete shock. I responded within ten minutes. When I shared it with my husband that evening and with my two adult sons, now 29 and 31, they didn’t quite comprehend what it meant. I knew instantly. DNA doesn’t lie. I didn’t know how this happened, but I was confident that this man who messaged me, James Dodds, was my half-brother.
<h6>Coming to Terms</h6>
After the initial shock wore off, the emotions flooded in. I was inundated with random memories, like my dad saving me from drowning when, as a five-year-old, I had walked off the edge of a pier during summer vacation. And I remembered his family, my grandma’s loving face, and the big Christmas get-togethers with everyone at my house. My earliest memory is of looking inside eggs using a red light with his dad, my grandfather, when I was three or four. I remembered being the oldest grandchild among all my cousins. And I remembered my dad’s siblings—Uncle Les, Auntie Myrna, and Auntie Mary—all of whom have stood by me and supported me through my life’s journey, never judging or condemning me or taking sides when it came to my complicated relationship with my father. They have loved me unconditionally while loving their brother, too. I LOVE my family. They are my family.
My heart shattered thinking that might not be true anymore. I also wondered, how did this happen?
<h6>The Backstory</h6>
I knew my mother was pregnant when she married my father, and their marriage wasn’t blissful, but I wanted to know more. Though it had been a long time since we’d spoken, I sent her an email asking about her connection and relationship with Jim Dodds. 
I knew my email would come as a shock to her. So I waited for her response.The next morning she replied: 
“I dated someone with that name when I was 18.” 
This confirmed my initial instinct: Jim Dodds was my biological father.
I don’t think anyone would ever blame me if I was angry at my mother, but that’s not what I felt. Instead, I reached out to her to talk and we decided to meet face to face for the first time in almost a decade.    
My mother explained she had fallen in love with a bull rider, Jim Dodds. But she was so young and had already experienced trauma in her life. And she had a past relationship with my father. They had a daughter together four years before I was born, in 1964, and my mom had to give her up for adoption. When she got pregnant at 19, she broke things off with Jim and told him she was getting married without ever mentioning her pregnancy. She believed my dad was my biological father.
<h6>The Meaning of Family</h6>
I was devastated when I learned that my dad wasn’t my birth father. But I realized that family is so much more than being related by blood or sharing DNA. It is about being there for each other through the good times, and especially the bad. It is the relationships in our lives that provide a sense of security and belonging. It is the people that hold your heart gently in their hands. It is about feeling that you are in a safe space, no matter what you share. Family is about feeling valued, respected, and understood. It is being able to say you are sorry when someone says you hurt them.
I am incredibly blessed to have so many relationships like this in my life. And I’m not alone in that feeling. We live in a world where the definition of family has expanded. Children continue to be adopted, people get divorced and then remarried with blended families, foster parents care for children, and individuals pursue parenthood and family through routes like surrogacy and IVF. There are so many scenarios, and all of those people are no less loved, no less connected, and no less family than those that share DNA. The one crucial ingredient is love. I always knew this; it just took a few days to catch my breath and realize it.
Today, I am still processing this news. 
As much as my dad and I had our own challenges throughout the course of our lives, I loved him very much. I never wished for a different father. 
I also regret that my biological father Jim passed away in 2021 before we could meet. He will never know that I was born. He will never know his amazing grandsons.
Yet I’ve realized that if this hadn’t been kept a secret, my life wouldn’t have been enriched by the people I love most. So, as hard as it has been to work through all of my emotions about this revelation, I feel my life is as it should be.
I would never want to alter the course of fate. I love my family and was always meant to be Brett’s sister.

Jodee, as a young girl, and her baby brother Brett

A 23andMe Customer Reflects on the Meaning of Family  

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-28683 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-300x170.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="170" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-300x170.jpg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-1024x580.jpg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-768x435.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-880x498.jpg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1-1180x668.jpg 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/customer-panel-v1.jpg 1996w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
This holiday, 23andMe invited three customers to join us virtually and share their DNA discovery stories. Hearing from customers first-hand reminds us of how our work impacts people’s lives. It also gives us a glimpse into our customers’ experience.
This year we heard from Jason, Kimberly, and Lynn. They each shared their stories and described their plans to expand their (virtual) holiday tables this year in order to fit their newfound relatives.
Customer Lynn Mendelson summed up the feeling each had when she said that neither the pandemic nor the quarantine changed the joy of finding family this year.
“Nothing can dampen this discovery,” Lynn said.

	<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-1024x768.png" alt="" class="wp-image-28681" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-1024x768.png 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-300x225.png 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-768x576.png 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-880x660.png 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997-1180x885.png 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/IMG_8997.png 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
	
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<h6>Finding Family</h6>
It was Lynn who kicked off the discussion by greeting 23andMe employees with an enormous smile. She explained that as an adoptee who knew almost nothing about her <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry">health and ancestral background</a>, every detail in her health and ancestry reports thrilled her. But nothing compared to the feeling of shock when she logged into her 23andMe account and saw the words, “predicted niece” written on top of a new message. It was her first connection to her birth family.
Lynn’s next few months felt like a dream as her niece told her about her birth family for the first time. This culminated with her meeting her eight brothers and sisters, and even more extended relatives. You could hear the love in her voice as she described her new family and teared up while sharing a touching video showing the first time she met them.
Lynn, who’s now in constant contact with her siblings, feels as if she’s grown up with them her whole life saying:
“What’s changed for me is that my husband and I now have this massive, loving &#8211; I can’t tell you how loving they all are &#8211; family.”

	<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="551" height="1024" src="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-551x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-28682" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-551x1024.jpeg 551w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-161x300.jpeg 161w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-768x1427.jpeg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-473x880.jpeg 473w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172-635x1180.jpeg 635w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jason-Payne-e1608065570172.jpeg 1188w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 551px) 100vw, 551px" /></figure>
	
<h6>Finding a Birth Father</h6>
Like Lynn, Jason, a 24-year-old from California, found family on 23andMe. But Jason described something different. He said for him growing up without a father, left him with a feeling of emptiness.
When he first used 23andMe he said he initially was disappointed because he didn’t see any close matches listed on his DNA Relatives. That changed within a month of first opening his reports when Jason received an email from a woman who said that, according to 23andMe, she was his aunt!
Jason laughed as he explained, with admiration, the impressive online sleuthing she navigated in finding him. Together they worked out the identity of his father.
During the panel discussion at 23andMe Jason proudly shared photographs of his first meeting with his father. He said they both are excited to build a  relationship. The impact of making this connection was profound, Jason said.
“I feel like I’m now really me, the best version of myself and I’m complete.,” he said, “I feel like I can take on anything.”

	<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="604" src="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-1024x604.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-28690" srcset="https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-1024x604.jpg 1024w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-300x177.jpg 300w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-768x453.jpg 768w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-880x519.jpg 880w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly-1180x696.jpg 1180w, https://blog.pub.us-west-2.prd.23andme.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Katelyn-Kimerbly.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
	
<h6>Finding the Silver Lining</h6>
Kimberly, the third customer on 23andMe’s panel, echoed the feelings of both Jason and Lynn when she expressed the sense of gratitude she had at finding relatives.
Kimberly was adopted from Korea to a small family living in Colorado. She didn’t know anything about her birth parents in Korea and said when she tested with 23andMe she was hopeful to learn something but didn’t have high expectations of finding relatives.  That might explain why she was absolutely shocked when she saw a predicted half-sister at the top of her DNA Relatives list.
Kimberly described feeling a roller-coaster of emotions as she reached out to her newfound sister, and then waited three days for a response.
Her sister, Katelyn, who was also adopted shared photographs of her parents and grandparents from Korea. Katelyn had previously connected with them through her adoption agency.  She then tried to help Kimberly find her own place in the family.
Katelyn’s investigation ended with life-changing answers, which she revealed to Kimberly on a phone call. After asking Kimberly to sit down, Katelyn told her that she wasn’t Kimberly’s half-sister, but Kimberly’s niece. More, the people in the photographs Katelyn had previously shared were her siblings and parents who had been looking for Kimberly for over 30 years.
Kimberly described feeling overcome with emotions during her first Facetime conversation with her family in Korea. Today with the help of Google Translate and a friend who speaks Korean, Kimberly said she has been able to continue building her relationship with her large Korean family. She also told us she’s become incredibly close to Katelyn, her niece and initial 23andMe match, who feels more like a sister she’s known her entire life than a newly discovered niece. Kimberly concluded her story saying:
“This is certainly my silver lining in this dark cloud of a global pandemic.”

DNA Relatives