I almost cried the first time I saw my chromosomes through GEDmatch's "Chromosome Painter" tool. These intertwining waves of color (which in the picture above are from a portion of my Chromosomes 8-12) represent thousands and thousands of ancestors' genes and innumerable migrations and stories of survival. For me, pie charts, lists of percentages, and pedigree charts do not have the same majestic weight as this collective visual representation of my ancestors.
I understand that GEDmatch and all these genetic ancestry sites can only compare my DNA to sample populations, and do not represent my exact genealogy. While I paired Chromosome Painter with the Eurogenes K13 admixture calculator, you can run your DNA through many other calculators (listed and explained in this blog post). I appreciate how Eurogenes K13 shows broader regional results rather than individual countries' populations. It's interesting that all the regions except for Oceanian appear in my chromosomes!
Only GEDmatch offers me this level of chromosomal detail with matches. AncestryDNA only lists total cM and number of segments. So far, I have only found 4 people on GEDmatch with a clear genealogical link to me. They have given my a very valuable insight: which ancestors contributed to about 4% of my DNA. I made this chart on DNAPainter of my matching segments on Chromosomes 1-17:
The green segments I share with Danielle, a descendant of my maternal great-great-grandparents, William and Beatrice Karasov.
The blue segments I share with Michael, an adoptee who also shares a lot of mutual AncestryDNA matches with ancestors from Santander Department, Colombia. I assume these segments are from ancestors of my paternal grandfather Rueda.
The red segments I share with Myriam, who has Caribbean Colombian ancestry and is therefore related to my paternal grandmother Vásquez. My best guess as to how we are related is through her 3rd-great-grandfather, Lázaro María Herrera y Paniza (1786-1859). My 3rd-great-grandmother, Andrea Herrera (1830?-1856) was a foundling raised by Lázaro's brother. Perhaps Andrea was Lázaro's biological niece or daughter.
Under GEDmatch's Admixture Utilities there's the option "Paint differences between 2 kits," which allows me to see the similarities between my shared chromosomal segments and genetic reference populations. Again, I am using the Eurogenes K13 tool.
First is a comparison of Chromosome 12 for me and Jellissa, representing a segment we both inherited from my great-great-grandfather José Ángel Vásquez. The top bar is my chromosome, the middle bar is Jellissa's chromosome, and the third bar shows the admixture populations that we share:
Next I look at a segment of my Chromosome 11 which is partially from my paternal Rueda family and partially from my maternal Karasov family. This first bar is my entire segment of Chromosome 11:
This next bar is the part of the segment I share with Michael, a relation of the Rueda family. You can see large portions of North Atlantic, Native American, and West and East Mediterranean:
Finally, here is the portion of the segment I share with Danielle, my fellow descent from the Karasov family. Once again, there are large portions of North Atlantic and East Mediterranean, which reflect the Ashkenazi Jews' European and Middle Eastern ancestry:
Had I picked different admixture calculator tools besides Eurogenes K13 there would have been different ranges of colors representing different populations. I hope to gain better insight into all the ways GEDmatch can measure admixture.
It's astounding to be able to see the exact genetic legacy of my ancestors. These "painter" tools have made the whole DNA test worthwhile.
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut [at] gmail.com
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