More about DNA testing

From: Michael Cooley <michael_at_newsummer.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:23:51 -0700

To reiterate:

The most helpful and affordable test for men to take--at least in respect
to surname--is the 37-marker Y-STR test at FamilyTreeDNA.com. If you join
the Cooley DNA project, it's $150. There are additional advanced tests,
but they're a lot more expensive.

For those of us who want more information without spending a lot of money,
I recommend 23andme. They don't test Y-STRs, which are particularly
helpful for genealogy, but they do test ancient Y-SNPs. For the same $99,
they also test mitochondrial DNA, and autosomes, the latter being what
we've been discussing the last couple of days.

Both Don Cooley and Gloria Tanner have sent their results to me for
further analysis. But I need something to compare them to. Don and I have
learned that of the Y-SNPs we've had tested in common at 23andme match
exactly. That's not surprising as they are very old SNPs. But it will
likely be through SNP testing that we will be able to determine how
William Henry Cooley and James Cooley of Jack County TX are related to us.

If you'd like to send your 23andme results to me, simply log into your
account, click on your name on the upper right for the pulldown menu,
select "Browse Raw Data," and "DOWNLOAD" at the upper right. Simply attach
the ZIP file to an email message and send it off to michael_at_newsummer.com

It's entirely possible that the auDNA match between Jack and Gloria is a
statistical fluke. If it's not, it's possible to find that out through
more testing. It's important to understand, though, that instead of
inheriting 100% of a DNA type from one parent, as is the case with Y-DNA
and mtDNA, autosomes are inherited 50% from each parent in a random
fashion. It's unpredictable. But with enough data, it can be sorted out.

-Michael
Received on Thu Apr 10 2014 - 19:23:51 CDT