October 3, 2016 General Meeting:
Judy Clayton will present “Mysteries and Discoveries from DNA Testing

Kittitas Co Genealogical Society Meeting Mon Oct 3 7PM 413 N Main St, Ellensburg WA & Bob Wieking (actually Nancy) will be providing our refreshments

[Background explanation for Judy’s DNA talk]

In KCGS library are more copies of solution to 200 year mystery of origin of Abe Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks.

It’s okay to merely appreciate the mystery and the surprise answer. But the background in cellular DNA testing is that there are 3 different kinds of DNA birth parent tests now:

• First we had the test like Candace Hooper used to find out why her genetics were so different from her apparent “Hoopers.” That tests the similarity of the Y-chromosome that boys get from their Dad’s Dad’s Dad’s Dad’s Dad etc.
• Nowadays AUTOSOMAL-DNA is a generally useful DNA test for similarity anywhere among your genetic ancestors for about 4 or 5 generations back.  Ancestry.com mostly uses Autosomal DNA tests of the similarity of your 22 non-sex chromosomes (to other people’s test results).  It’s more reliable, for more lines and for further generations, if multiple siblings (close relatives) all get tested, because any one person could happen to receive an abnormally low percentage of DNA from a particular ancestral line.  AND ANCESTRY.COM DNA TESTS tell us more if we attach to the test-results-section, a simplified ancestry.com of our family tree.  If the DNA correlation to another sample is low, Ancestry.com may only report it to you if both you and the other submitter list the same people among their online tree.
• Your genetic father only contributes, to your cellular make-up, a tiny bit of DNA from the cell nucleus.  All the rest of each of your body cells’ makeup came directly from your birth mother (and from her mom’s mom’s mom).  And one of the non-nuclear inclusions in your cells is/are called Mitochondria, which give us our energy.  But for DNA studies Mitochondia have some of their own DNA, unrelated to your chromosomal DNA in your cell nuclei.  So if our family history mystery concerns “Who was the mother?” mt-DNA (mitochrondial) is a useful genetic test for the similarity to possible maternal lines.  Abe Lincoln’s mother’s mitochondrial DNA happened to be of an unusual type; so her maternal genetic similarities were extremely certain.