DNA and Family Tree Posts
This page includes duplicates of DNA and Family Tree posts that I made on the main/blog page but are consolidated here to make these related posts easier to find. THey will also be found on the Home page or archive pages
For the latest DNA and Family tree results see:
Our DNA and Family Tree (latest updates)
The newest posts from in this category are at the top (like the main/blog page).
11/03/2018 -Trees!
My Facebook post from today:
Trees! OK, the trees outside are nice this time of year but that is not what this post is about. I just wanted to add a photo and I took this one on one of my rides last week.
I really wanted to mention that I did some updates and reformatted our Family Tree document. This may not be interesting to everyone out there but you family relatives on Facebook might find this interesting. See www.robanddara.com for the updates.
Beyond Facebook:
Man, researching relatives and putting together family trees is time consuming but I have done some additional work and research on our ancestors and family trees. The family tree documents that I have posted can be found at the link below.
Before I post that link though here is some information on how the documents have been put together and what my sources were. First of all, the original version of the family tree document that I did was put together for class projects for Casey and Corinne in grade school (I think) so the very start of the tree is Casey and Corinne.
The main source of information that I started with (for the Chapman side) was The Genealogy of the George Chapman Family from 1841 to 1994 by Irene (Chapman) Stearns which is a paper document that Irene gave to me at one of our family reunions (probably around 1994). I believe that she put a lot of work into this and I am very grateful that she shared it with me.
One of my main sources of information for the Rowe side of the family (my moms side) was the headstones at Mt. Olivet cemetery in Aurora. I added the things that I knew and also researched additional information online at Anscestry.com and the Mormon site FamilySearch.org (which is a great free resource (although now you need to have a login account for access)).
The original information that I got for Daras side of the family, the Anstaett, Heuser and related families (for version 1 of the tree) was from Dara and her mom I believe. Just recently I added a lot more information to their side of the tree going all the way back to the 1650 that I got from the information that Nadia Tirandazi shared with us on her Ancestry.com Family Trees. Thank you Nadia!!!
Notes on the Main Family Tree Document and Formatting:
The Chapman, Anstaett Family Tree includes bloodlines only (parents, grandparents, great-grand, etc. only) and for now only includes the family members names and birth and death dates and locations (if known). I have some additional, more interesting information on many family members which I may add later but in order to get this done I have kept it simple to start with.
I did the Chapman, Anstaett Family Tree in Excel (of course!) then I converted that document to fit into a one page PDF document for the website. It will usually come up very small when you first bring up the document but you can easily size it much larger to see what you want to see.
I kept the Chapman side (mine) separate from the Anstaett side (Daras) since this is the way that I started to put the information together and I believe it makes it easier to navigate. The Chapman side is on top and the Anstaett side is below. From there I always have the fathers side above the mothers side (I call this the missionary format. Oh no, I did not just say that!!! :-) ) with the fathers side in black and the mothers side in red.
I used a Top Down format keeping each generation together in one column with lines and brackets to the next generation rather than the usual Flowchart-like format because it seems easier to read and definitely easier to maintain this way.
OK, I think that is all that I need to yak about here (I may tweak this post as I think of other stuff). So here's the main link that you ave all been waiting for (right?)!
The Latest Chapman, Anstaett Family Tree
This link goes to the Family Tree section of the DNA and Family Tree page on this site which has the latest documents.
Some Additional Interesting Stuff:
The Chapman side now goes back to 4 ancestors from the late 1700s in Scotland and the Anstaett side goes back to 2 ancestors from the mid 1600s in Ireland and includes a Duke!
On my side of the family I also have relatives from Pennsylvania (where one has a photo in a Union uniform) and relatives from Tennessee. So I guess my relatives were Rebels and Yankees in the Civil War. I am so Confused!
10/6/2018 - Shadow's DNA Results are in!
We finally got Shadow's DNA results back so now we have the DNA results for our entire human family and One Dog!!! 
The photo here has our 3 most recent dogs. In the photo (Left to Right) is Kitty, Shadow and Dexter then Kitty again at the bottom (in the snow). If you click on it you will get the larger version as usual.
Although we don't have DNA for Dexter and Kitty passed away last December, I wanted to mention them too regarding the breeds that I was going to talk about so I needed the photo for reference.
OK, here's the main news. We just got Shadow's DNA Results back today! Since all of our recent dogs are Shelter Dogs, we did not know for sure what breeds they were.
Dexter is pretty obviously a Beagle. If there is something else mixed in there, I can't tell (maybe some pit bull). We never knew about Kitty but she was huge and loved laying out in the snow in below zero weather (as shown in the photo)! This made me think that she was some kind of sled dog breed. Some people thought part Flat-Coated Retriever, some though part Chow Chow, others thought Newfoundland(er) dog. I thought there could be some Husky in there too. Well I guess we will never know for sure what breed she was.
As for Shadow, when we got her, Dara said that the people said that she was part Black Lab and Part German Shepard. Well now that the DNA results are in, it has been confirmed what it is:
Here is the PDF with Shadow's DNA Results!
One of the charts in the PDF file is sideways so here a link to the DNA Chart flipped the right way.
So as it turns out, Shadow is Flat-Coated Retriever (50%), Retriever (black) (25%), Border Collie (12.5%) and German Shepherd (12.5%) Note: They did not actually provide the actual percentages but I derived them based on the chart that they provided and that I linked to above.
... See original page for the rest...
3/30/2018 -Casey's DNA Results are in and I Consolidated All of Our Results
Casey sent in his DNA results a while after the rest of us but his Results are Now In. Since we already had Mine, Dara's and Corinne's results there were no surprises on Casey's DNA Ancestry Make-up but, as expected, the percentages are different than the rest of ours.
I have updated Casey's DNA Result links above.
I have also put together a spreadsheet (of course (cause that's what I do)) that compares all of our family DNA results in a couple of different ways. I have converted the spreadsheet to a PDF file and have posted it here (see the link below).
On the Comparison link below, I removed the categories that had sub-categories below them with percentages so that it would be limited to the specific region or country percentage (without higher level categories) that would simply add up to 100% (or a little more for the ones that were listed as "< 0.1%")
Next, I matched the results for all 4 of us based on the common country/region in the top chart and sorted each of our results from highest to lowest percentage in the bottom chart.
For Some Fun Stats:
As a brief summary, the four of us are basically all over 99% British and Irish, French and German, Scandinavian and overall European with some trace amounts of other stuff.
In the main categories: I am the most British and Irish and the most Scandinavian of the 4 of us, Corinne is the most French and German and Dara is the most Pure European :-).
In the trace amount categories: Casey is the most Italian and I am the most Ashkenazi Jewish.
OK, I'm sure this is all confusing and maybe even too much for a lot of you so here is the Comparisons Link to try to clarify what I am yaking about.
3/4/2018 -New 2nd Cousins
I just found that 23andMe.com just found me a new 2nd Cousin. Her (or his) name is Taylor Novak. 23andMe.com says that she/he could be a 2nd cousin or possibly a removed cousin (different generation) or half cousin.
They also say that we probably have Great Grandparents in common. So I sent Taylor the list of GGPs that I have (I know of 7 out of 8 of them) to see if she/he knows who we have in common.
Ancestry.com also found a 2nd cousin for me and this one is someone that I already know about. This one is John Linden. John died last year (2017) and he is actually a cousin once removed to me. So the description that 23andMe had above is correct.
The original DNA Posts RE-POSTED - So it is all in one place
There are additional links and information in the posts below along with some of the same information that is included above although the information above will be more complete and is all in the same format.
I did not want to rewrite all the information below but I did want it all in one place.
2/22/2018 -I got my DNA Results from 23andme!
I finally got my 23andme DNA results today (I sent our spit in just after Christmas)! As some of you may remember Dara and I also had our DNA tested at Ancestry.com but I had done some research after that and now believe that 23andme.com might be more accurate (and has more details).
Dara also got her 23andme DNA results back too so we can both compare our 23andme results to Ancestry.com. Casey and Corinne also had 23andme tests and Corinne has hers back now too (Casey sent his in late so it will be a while before we get his).
First of all, here's a brief summary of my 23andme results: As many of you may have suspected... Yes, I am African and Jewish!!! :-) Oy, vey! OK, I am mostly Northwestern European (like 47% British and Irish) you'll need to see the photo links below for the full breakout.
The other important thing that we verified is that Corinne is my Daughter!!! :-) Daras can no longer tell me that she could be the mailman's daughter! We never told 23andme that she was related to us but they did match her up as our daughter (so they must know something!).
When I briefly compared Dara and my DNA results from 23andme and Ancestry.com, I found that mine was closer in general (although they analyze things differently) but Daras Ancestry.com results seemed way off (23andme seemed more accurate based on what she knows about her recent ancestors).
OK, I am not going to have time for a complete update tonight, but here are a few links to my DNA results from the 2 places.
My DNA Ancestry results from 23andme
My Ancestry Timeline from 23andme
My DNA results from Ancestry.com
We also had the Health Risk, Carrier status, Wellness and Traits tests done too. I have no health risk or carrier issues (just via my DNA) but some of these tests are very interesting. Like it says I am likely to have red hair (OK, check (when I was younger anyway)), It's likely that I have no "bald spot" but then I am also likely to have early hair loss (no bald spot cause I have no hair! :-)) and my muscular composition is common with elite power athletes. Yes!!! Well, not now though (gotta workout a little more :-)).
I'm going to do more work on this and post more (like on all of us) later, but I just wanted to get my updates out here fer now.
Stay tuned...
THe original Post of the DNA Results from Ancestry.com
3/26/2017 - Our DNA Results are in!
For those of you who don't know this, Casey and Corinne got Dara and me DNA kits from Ancestry.com for Christmas this year. I thought (and still do think) that this was really cool! I did some Family Tree, genealogy work in the past (also included in my last post below) but I always wanted to verify the results and fill in a lot of the unknown information.
Well, we sent our spit in to Ancestry.com in early January and just now got the results (it took forever but they said that up front). The results verified some of what I knew but also had a lot of other things that were complete surprises.
Like Dara knows that some of her relatives are from Germany and France and her highest percentage on Ancestry.com shows as Scandinavian (see notes below). I know that I have ancestors from England and Scotland, and and fairly sure about Ireland and possibly Holland and Ancestry does show that but not in the proportions that I expected plus I also got Scandinavian which I did not expect.
So I ended up doing a bunch of research this weekend and ultimately found some reviews on the 5 major DNA website/companies online. Each place has their pros and cons but Ancestry.com is by far the largest (most members) and 23andMe is number 2 but their European DNA results are rated higher.
So, if you want to find lost relatives, Ancestry.com may be the better choice but if you have European heritage 23andMe might be the way to go. I am considering doing another test now at 23andMe. One of the sites that I thought was reliable also said the Ancestry.com had very good DNA results for Africa so each site is different in that way also.
I have removed the links to Ancestry.com because in just 1 year they changed some of the links and make you login to their site for others...
So here are the summaries of our DNA results as JPGs:
Here's Dara's DNA Results Summary as a JPG
Here's Rob's DNA Results Summary as a JPG
Here is a NOTE on the Ancestry.com European Results (from International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki) that I thought was very relevant in our case (especially related to the British and Scandinavian results):
AncestryDNA:
Overall rating: 3
The Genetic Ethnicity Summary consistently overestimates the Central European and Scandinavian ancestral components for people whose ancestors were from the British Isles.
The ancestral component from the British Isles is overestimated for people whose ancestors were from continental Europe. Overall, the European ancestry predictions tend to be inaccurate.
FYI, The ratings are from 1-10 with 10 being the highest. This site rates 23andMe at an Overall rating of 7.
OK, is that enough fer now... :-)
3/5/2017 - Ancestry, DNA and Family Trees
(unrelated posts removed...)
... Our Ancestry DNA and family tree stuff. Many of you may already know that Casey and Corinne got Dara and I DNA kits from Ancestry.com for Christmas. I thought that this was really cool from the beginning. I did some family research quite a few years ago and got a lot of information from Irene Stearns on my dads side of the family (she did most of that work) and I documented a little of my moms side.
Then Casey and Corinne had an assignment in school related to family trees so I got a bunch of information on Dara's side of the family and put that together with mine for a pretty good family tree (direct blood lines only) from Casey and Corinne up.
I did the limited free enrollment in Ancestry.com (which is in addition to the DNA part of the site (I'll get to that more later) and I found a couple of additional relatives and made some corrections to my original tree but I could only get so far with that.
Anyway, I decided that it might be interesting and helpful to some of the people in the family to post my version of our family tree here. I also have a similar thing on Ancestry.com but then you have to have a login with them to see it. I tried to keep things in a common format so I just used Excel rather than some special software. So there are a few things that could be a little neater but I think this version is fine.
In Excel, you have the options to save the spreadsheets as web pages (HTMLs) or PDFs. Both cam out well but since there is a lot of information you either need to zoom in and out (with the PDF version) or use the scroll bars on the HTML version. So for now, I am just going to post the PDF version and here it is:
This version ONLY includes parents and their kids (direct blood lines). I did not include the entire families with all the brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and Uncles, etc. Maybe after I semi-retire I'll have a little time for that (actually I have a pretty big list of things to do already but I'll add it to the list!)
I was hoping to post some different versions of the family trees but for now I am just doing this one. I may also make this a link button at the top or bottom of the pages eventually.
OK, I am really getting anxious to get our DNA ancestry results back (they say 6 to 8 weeks and it has been a little over 6 weeks now). When I get our DNA results I'm sure I will post them here but until then I wanted to mention one more thing...
I did a little research (not much really) and found that siblings do not necessarily have the exact same Ancestry DNA. At first, I thought that my ancestry DNA would be the same for my brother and Dara's would be the same for her brother and sister. It turns out that that is not correct.
I have already rambled on quite enough for now so I am not going to try to explain this here in my own words. What I will do though is post a link to one of the many web pages that describe this. I think this page was very clear and easy to understand with their graphic examples.
So here is the page on Siblings with Same Parents and Different Ancestry DNA.
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