Can You Use Raw Dna To Upload To Ancestry If You Didn't Purchase From Them?

The one affair we genealogists probably desire most from our autosomal DNA matches is something they can't give the states: an exact relationship prediction based on shared Dna lone. Unfortunately, with the exceptions of identical-twin, parent–kid and full-sibling matches, that's just non possible.

Why not? One reason is that multiple different relationships can give the same patterns of shared Deoxyribonucleic acid. For instance, a woman who shares 1750 cM with you lot could be your grandmother, granddaughter, aunt, or half sister. Those relationships are indistinguishable based solely on the amount of shared DNA. (In this case, you can narrow the possibilities using age.) Someone sharing 950 cM with yous could be a great-grandparent/grandchild, outset cousin, cracking-uncle/aunt/nephew/niece, or half-uncle/aunt/nephew/niece.

The Deoxyribonucleic acid Detectives Facebook team has designed a slap-up chart that categorizes relationships into groups based on the expected amounts of shared DNA. In the 2 examples above, grandparent/kid, aunt/uncle, and one-half sibling would be Group B, and not bad-grandparent/grandchild, first cousin, corking-uncle/aunt/nephew/niece, or half-uncle/aunt/nephew/niece would be Group C. I will utilise the Dna Detectives group names in the rest of this mail for ease of reference.

Shared centimorgan ranges for different relationship groups. The original nautical chart is bachelor in the files of the DNA Detectives Facebook group.

To complicate matters, each group is defined not so much by an boilerplate or "expected" amount of shared DNA only by a range. That is, someone in Group B might share 1750 cM with y'all, simply they could also share as little as 1300 cM or as much equally 2300 cM, according to the Dna Detectives chart. Group C can range from 575 cM to 1330 cM.

Find another problem? The depression end of the Group B range overlaps the high end of the Group C range. Put another way, someone who shares 1315 cM with y'all could be in either group (and remember that each grouping includes multiple possible relationships). Worse, the more than distantly related the group, the broader the range of shared centimorgans relative to the average and the more overlap in that location is with other groups. Someone who shares 1315 cM with you can only autumn into Groups B or C, merely someone who shares 100 cM could belong to Group East, F, or K, according to the Dna Detectives chart.

When you take a lucifer in an overlap zone, the best approach is to consider the almost likely group offset. AncestryDNA's Matching White Newspaper (31 March 2016) presents an informative graph (their Effigy v.2) that shows the likelihood of each group (the ten centrality) given the corporeality of shared Deoxyribonucleic acid (the y axis). Their graph is based on simulated data, rather than empirical (existent) information, but equally long as the model they used to do the simulations is reasonable, the information should be reliable.

Distributions of shared centimorgans for different human relationship categories based on simulated information. This graph was taken from the AncestryDNA Matching White Newspaper published 31 March 2016 (their Figure five.2).

Unfortunately, they used a logarithmic calibration, which is a slap-up space saver but is intuitive to precisely no one. They also misuse the word "meioses", confusing people who aren't familiar with the term as well as those who are. To make the information easier to understand, I edited the epitome labels to apply the groups from the Dna Detectives chart. Here's what the modified effigy looks like.

Figure 5.ii from the AncestryDNA Matching White Paper edited to utilise the groups divers by the Deoxyribonucleic acid Detectives nautical chart. Annotation that the numbered ranges to the correct of the graph mark regions where that group is the most probable one, not the full range for that group. For example, between 200 cM and 340 cM, the most probable human relationship is Group E, but the total range for that grouping is 65–600 cM (see below).

The figure gives you a visual sense of how broad the ranges are for each relationship grouping and how much overlap in that location is. Information technology also shows usa which centimorgan values represent only one possible group; those are the zones forth the vertical y axis that only have one colored line crossing them. Between about 2400 cM and 3200 cM, the but line is the medium blue i for Grouping A, and between most 1550 cM and 2000 cM, the only line is the forest green i for Group B. At that place's a short interval around grand cM that can only exist Grouping C, but for all other centimorgan values, more than one group of relationships could apply.

Because of the log scale, the graph is difficult to interpret if you lot're interested in a specific centimorgan amount. To get around the problem, I approximated x and y values for each curve using an online plot digitizer. Geek power!

What does this tell us? It gives us an indication of which group of relationships is well-nigh likely to apply to a friction match who shares a specific corporeality of DNA. For case, a match sharing 750 cM with you lot is in an overlap zone, but they are far more probable to be in Grouping C (probability p = 0.85, or 85% hazard) than in the overlapping Group D (p = 0.15, or 15% chance). Of course, the numbers don't guarantee that the match is in Group C, but that's where I'd beginning looking for the connexion.

The probabilities can be more complicated. Consider a match who shares 110 cM with you. That person could belong to Group East (p = 0.08, 8% adventure), Group F (p = 0.39, 39% run a risk), Group One thousand (p = 0.xxx, 30% gamble), Group H (p = 0.20, 20% take a chance), or Grouping I (p = 0.06, half-dozen% take chances). Again, the all-time approach would be to wait for a shared ancestor in the most likely human relationship range get-go, so Group F > Group Grand > Group H > Group Due east > Group I.

You may also exist familiar with the Shared cM Project past Blaine Bettinger. This projection compiles cocky-reported data from the genetic genealogy community for different relationships. Thus, it gives usa both the extremes (maximum and minimum values) equally well as histograms (bar graphs showing how common given centimorgan values are for each human relationship). The histograms are comparable to the colored lines on the AncestryDNA graph.

For comparison, I've aligned the ranges from the three datasets beneath. For the Shared cM Projection, I've combined data for relationships that vest to the aforementioned group (east.g., outset cousins one time removed and second cousins both belong to Group East, and then they were treated together).

The ranges given by the DNA Detectives are consistently narrower than those from the other two sources. That is mainly due to the fact that the DNA Detectives chart intentionally omits extreme outliers, which are especially challenging to deal with in the unknown parentage searches for which the nautical chart was created. Their dataset is also the smallest, although it has the advantage that each datapoint has been advisedly vetted by an adept. The Shared cM Projection ranges are similar to those of AncestryDNA, just not exactly the same. Differences between the ii could outcome from errors in the self-reported data of the former, the relative sizes of the datasets (the faux dataset is almost certainly much larger than the empirical data), or assumptions made past AncestryDNA'due south scientists in designing the simulations. Regardless of which source of information you lot adopt to use in your own genealogical work, keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of each dataset is wise.

Notation: The probabilities and cM ranges discussed in this post assume trivial or no endogamy. Endogamy is the practice of members of a population marrying within the aforementioned group over multiple generations. If skillful for plenty time, the nowadays-day members of the population will all exist related to one some other multiple different ways.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Dr. Tracy Vogler for alerting me to the online plot digitizer. CeCe Moore and Christa Stalcup kindly agreed to let me reproduce the DNA Detectives chart hither.