Yay DNA! Post the Third

Well here I am, 5 DNA tests under my belt and SO much still to learn.  I'll start off with all of the test results I have.  Click the image for a larger view.

Here's a recap of my own results:

My sister's results:

My dad's results:

My mom's results:

My maternal grandmother's results:

Goodness, we are all over the place!  I think I'm the only one who doesn't have less than 1% of something.  Even Ancestry puts a disclaimer on those < 1% answers.  It makes me wonder just how accurate these things are, but since it's all I've got at the moment, what can I do but take it for what it is?

This, of course, has led me into the realm of DNA-aided research.  I said just this morning in a Facebook status that I did a report on Gregor Mendel back in probably elementary school.  After which, I promptly "data dumped" most of what I learned.  Today I've been reading up on DNA and genetic matching for genealogy purposes. God has a unique sense of humor.

I've been hearing about GEDmatch for a while, so I finally decided to check into that.  I uploaded my personal DNA test earlier in the week, and finally added all my tests there today to see what kind of information and connections are available.  I already noticed one "cousin" with whom I've previously made contact has shown up as a match.  I'm hopeful that there will actually be more for me to find on GEDmatch than ancestry.com, especially since GEDmatch is free.  In the meantime, I'm doing some reading on DNA and genetics because while GEDmatch is free, it's also a very "basic" and information-based website with not a lot of frilly graphics.  So I feel like I need to have a little bit of knowledge under my belt to understand what I'm looking at.

If there's anyone out there reading this, and you are a GEDmatch veteran, or know a little something about genetics and DNA in genealogy research, I'd appreciate a comment with your best advice.  In the meantime, I'm going to try to find some time to read up a little on this stuff so I can make sense of what I'm seeing. :)

Yay DNA! Post the Two-and-a-Halfth?

Hey y'all, I know it's been like 2.5 years and all, but I just wanted to pop in to mention that I'll probably have more to share soon! :)  I haven't had an active ancestry.com subscription in quite a while, and life has been monopolized by other hobbies and adulting to the nth degree, so my research has unfortunately been hanging out in the back seat for a while.

However, I just celebrated my 33rd birthday, and my family gifted me with THREE AncestryDNA tests!  I'm so excited!  I just had to check and see if I'd shared that my sister has had the test done, and apparently I didn't.  Gosh I've been out of this loop for a while...  Anyway, both of my parents and my maternal grandmother are the subjects of these three tests, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the answers they could bring!  (Still haven't spotted those elusive Cherokee ancestors I've been repeatedly told I have).

In the meantime, I thought I would share that if you're interested in taking an AncestryDNA test of your own, I ALWAYS recommend folks to get them on sale or with a coupon code.  They can get pretty pricey, you know.  If you feel obliged to save yourself 10% and in return earn me a $10 referral reward, THIS LINK will benefit us both. :)  Looking forward to sharing more when the results are in, and hopefully get back to writing here now and then and maybe even researching once in a while.  Happy hunting!