| Endogamy in Your Family Tree |
| Diahan Southard is the founder and CEO of Your DNA Guide, as well as a frequent contributor to Family Tree Magazine. In celebration of DNA Day coming up, we asked her to dispel common myths about a tricky DNA problem that many genealogists face: endogamy. Myth #1: DNA testing can’t help me when I have endogamy in my family tree. Nothing could be farther from the truth. One of the biggest things that DNA does when you have endogamy is let you know that you have endogamy! If you are from an “obvious” endogamous community like Jewish or Polynesian, perhaps this doesn’t seem like a big deal. But when you do not know you have endogamy, and you are trying to apply the traditional genetic genealogy grouping techniques, and failing, you might think it is YOU and your inability to apply what you have learned. But in reality, the problem is that family of yours, and their practice of marrying within the same community over and over and over again. It is precisely the inability to separate your match list into groups that helps you see that you have endogamy, and alerts you to the need to apply a different approach. Myth #2 (and the biggest): You can’t use DNA to help you sort out your endogamous relationships. DNA can absolutely be useful in helping you figure out your family relationships, even if you have endogamy. The biggest thing that is still true, even with endogamy, is that with each match on your match list you will have what I call a Generation of Connection. To put it another way: You and every match share a common ancestor—you just need to do some work to figure out how many generations back that person is. To find your Generation of Connection you just need to look at that total amount of DNA, and either use the built-in tool at Ancestry, or the tool at DNA Painter to help you see the possible relationships you have with that person. With that proposed connecting generation in hand, you can then DO GENEALOGY to figure out how you are connected. There's a major giveaway happening over at Your DNA Guide in celebration of DNA Day as well. Enter before April 25th for your chance to win one of the fabulous prizes! |
