Wikitree, and the Value of Half-Relatives

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 I came across a useful feature of Wikitree yesterday; I was updating the Biography of my first cousin Pat, who died yesterday. Rest in peace, dear cousin.

New DNA Clue

Before I left her page I noticed a new name on the right, where DNA Connections are found. I've blurred the name of my new-found relative, but this is what I saw: 


Search for a Match

My first step was to search for him on 23andMe -- not found. Then, a one-to-one comparison on Gedmatch -- no shared segments. Nor with my sister, or another first cousin either. 

How about with my uncle? Yes! 35.1 cM, quite a healthy segment for a third cousin.

One to One Gedmatch comparison between my uncle and his Baysinger match

Find Common Ancestors

Next step: check the match's tree. His parents were private, but his grandfather's name was familiar, and in my own Ancestry.com tree. As I examined our two ancestral paths back to our common ancestor, an important aspect became clear: we share only a single ancestor, not a pair of great-grandparents. Elias Henry Baysinger married three times; we descend from different wives. 

Why Paint the Matched Segment?

Why is this important? It means that all that shared DNA comes only from EH Baysinger. It is rare to find such a large segment that can be mapped or painted to a single ancestor. 

This map took less than 5 minutes:


You may say, but I can already see that on Gedmatch! That's true. However, the DNA map on Gedmatch is gone when you close the page, and it does not have a maternal/paternal assignment to it, or the name of the common ancestor. AND, if I or my sister or cousin match our uncle on an overlapping segment, we will know that we got it from his father, not his mother. 

What? How can I say that?

Inferred Segments

DNA Painter has a new tool, the Inferred Segment Generator. And it is not as scary as it sounds. Before Jonny created this tool, people were "inferring" segments by hand. How does it work?

In short, If I know I didn’t inherit DNA from my paternal grandmother...for the length of a specific segment, then it follows that in this position I instead inherited DNA from my paternal grandfather...on my paternal copy of this chromosome, quoted from the blog linked below. 

I have not yet mapped this segment for me or my sister, but I certainly plan to do so, since this segment came from my uncle's mother Anna Baysinger, and we'll know that ours instead come from our grandfather Harvey McBee. 

Learn More

If you are interested in learning more about this advanced technique and you already know how to paint your DNA, then check the blog: https://dnapainter.com/blog/more-tips-for-inferred-chromosome-mapping/ or one of the videos it points to. Even if you are not interested in trying it out, I find it interesting to know that it's a possibility!


Valorie Zimmerman



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