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Category: Making Sense of DNA

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DNA as Negative Evidence

November 14, 2021 thednageek 11d Comments

We may not know exactly how we’re related to our autosomal DNA matches, but we know we are related to…

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Posted in: Busting Brick Walls, Making Sense of DNA Filed under: advanced, autosomal DNA, England, HAPI-DNA, negative evidence, shared DNA, World War I, y DNA, yDNA
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Virtual Learning With The DNA Geek!

September 12, 2021 thednageek 12d Comments

Do you enjoy The DNA Geek‘s blog? Do you like asking questions and learning from other students in live classes?…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: autosomal DNA, education, lecture, organization, third-party tools
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The Small Segment Debate Is Over

September 6, 2021 thednageek 35d Comments

For years, a heated debate has roiled the genetic genealogy community about small DNA segments. Judy Russell has recently written…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: false positive, identical by chance, identical by descent, identical by state, segment size
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Let’s Talk About Sex

June 30, 2021 thednageek 43d Comments

Sex is pretty simple: you’re either male or female, right? Nope! Turns out it’s not nearly that straightforward. In fact,…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: anatomical sex, chromosomal sex, gender identity, SRY gene, X chromosome, Y chromosome
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The Bitter End of Covid

June 13, 2021 thednageek 26d Comments

Being able to taste bitter foods might give you some protection from covid.

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: allele, bitter taste, covid, disease resistance, health, protein, T2R38, TAS2R38, traits

What’s in Your Toolbox? — DNA Painter’s cM Estimator

June 9, 2021 thednageek 9d Comments

There’s no secret that DNA Painter is my favorite third-party site for DNA analysis. Its tools for chromosome mapping, relationship…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: chromosome browser, chromosome mapping, cM Estimator, DNA Painter, shared centimorgans

Working with WATO: Centimorgan Adjustments

June 5, 2021 thednageek 13d Comments

This post has been updated. The What Are the Odds? tool (WATO) at DNAPainter.com has revolutionized how we identify unknown…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: relationship prediction, shared centimorgans, What Are the Odds? (WATO)

Quick Tip: Color Code Your Matches—Fast!

April 3, 2021 thednageek 29d Comments

One of the best things about AncestryDNA is the ability to color-code your DNA match list. There are 24 colors,…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: AncestryDNA, color coding, organization
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Double Cousins and DNA

March 15, 2021 thednageek 80d Comments

UPDATE: The kindness of the genealogy community continues to overwhelm … literally! We have enough data and the tool on…

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Posted in: Making Sense of DNA Filed under: double cousins, relationship prediction, third-party tools, What Are the Odds? (WATO)

DNA Basics: DNA Is Not Just for Genealogy

March 2, 2021 thednageek 9d Comments

DNA has been the best thing to hit genealogy since the invention of the census, but do you ever wonder…

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Posted in: Lagniappe, Making Sense of DNA Filed under: biology, DNA, genetic information, life, messenger RNA, mRNA, mutation, proteins

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