Adding “Genetic Communities” to My DNA Results

Evaluating My DNA Testing Results

It has probably been three or more years since I first received my DNA test results that I ordered through  Initially, I was very disappointed with the look and feel of Ancestry’s DNA feature–it merely showed (based upon my DNA sample test), that I descended from Europeans who had migrated to the New World.  Now, the only way I wouldn’t have already known this was if I had been an ostrich with its head buried in the sand for the past 400 or so years.

Over the past 18 months or longer, Ancestry has continued to add, or in its opinion, improve to its list of features like its “life story” option which assimilated facts from my collected documentation in my family tree to general historic timeline narratives of events in close proximity with a given fact.  It was a good try, but, in my opinion, something I preferred to research and narrate on my own with more specificity, if and when I chose to do a write about an individual.

Ancestry Releases Another New Feature

Then, this week, Ancestry sent me an email announcing more new features to help me better connect my people and my places to historical details and migration paths.  It seems AncestryDNA™ has become the largest consumer genetic testing company with 3,000,000 people tested; 80,000,000 trees; and 19,000,000,000 records.  And this time, Ancestry uses its vast collection of DNA results to tap into its family history resources and create an all-new feature “Genetic Communities™,” which in turn helps me fill in missing pieces about my family’s story and how it inter-relates to the geography, times, and stories of other families.

Earlier results broke down my ethnicity origins into a mere four regions of the world. With today’s results (that will continue to grow over time since this feature is in its Beta version), I can browse over 300 Genetic Communities using MapBox open source geospatial maps that Ancestry integrated into this new feature.

So Just What Is A “Genetic Community”?  

Ancestry describes a genetic community as a group of AncestryDNA members who are connected through DNA most likely because they descend from a population of common ancestors, even if they no longer live in the area where those ancestors once lived.  The image below shows that my ancestors and I are part of two genetic communities in which our connection is very likely or possible:  Early Settlers of Lower Midwest & Virginia and Early Settlers of Tennessee and the Deep South.

And further,  below is just one of six time-line examples within the “Early Settler of the Lower Midwest & Virginia” Genetic Communities™: (1700-1775 “Into the Back Country,” 1775-1825 “Kentucky Fever,” 1825-1850 “Along the Mississippi,” 1850-1875 “War Hits Home,” 1875-1900 “The South Industrializes, 1900-1950 “An Urban Life,” in this new feature. Although not shown as links, you can click on each name from your tree and it will display this person on the MapBox map, (which you can zoom in or out of for greater or less geographic detail); and you can also click another link that will allow you to view each person’s profile details from inside your Ancestry family tree.

“Into the Backcountry 1700-1775”

By 1700 flourishing towns and small cities dotted the eastern seaboard from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Many new immigrants from England and Germany, and Scots-Irish from northern Ireland, pressed into the rugged country to the west where they could find land, religious tolerance, political freedom, and economic opportunity. They faced threats from the French on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains and native peoples who resisted encroachment on their lands.

People in Your Tree

  1. Elizabeth Williams Settle  B:1661 D:1724
  2.  Elizabeth Frances Triplett B:1670 D:1710
  3. Deborah Hearn B:1670 D:1731
  4. John Powell B:1670 D:1731
  5. John Bourne B:1672 D:1720
  6. Ethelred Taylor B:1675 D:1716
  7. William George Wharton B:1675 D:1740
  8. Elizabeth Johnson B:1676 D:1760
  9. Elizabeth Duke B:1677 D:1725
  10. Susan Alvis B:1680 D:1735
  11. William Kinchen B:1681 D:1735
  12. Thomas Chowning B:1684 D:1782
  13. Elizabeth Ruffin B:1685 D:1761
  14. Sarah Davis B:1686 D:1721
  15. William Taptico II B:1690 D:1719
  16. Elizabeth Barrick B:1690 D:1724
  17. Sarah or Mary Ann Lee B:1690 D:
  18. William Elliott B:1692 D:1750
  19. Frances Rachel Riley B:1692 D:1751
  20. Lettice Bourk B:1693 D:1727
  21. Mary Fellows B:1693 D:1747
  22. Capt. John Higginbotham B:1695 D:1742
  23. Benjamin Asbury B:1695 D:1750
  24. John Jett B:1695 D:1771
  25. William Guttery B:1697 D:1723
  26. Frances Brown B:1698 D:1755
  27. Etheldred Taylor B:1699 D:1755
  28. Ann Elizabeth Wells B:1700 D:1770
  29. Robert Kyle B:1702 D:1774
  30. Benjamin Bowling B:1704 D:1767
  31. Betty Ann Campbell B:1704 D:1779
  32. Mary Williams B:1705 D:1735
  33. Samuel S McGehee B:1706 D:1788
  34. William Tapp B:1707 D:1791
  35. Christian Bourne B:1708 D:1791
  36. Mary Elizabeth Bland Blair Bolling B:1709 D:1775
  37. Thomas Wharton B:1711 D:1748
  38. Robert “Chowning” Chewning B:1711 D:1843
  39. Mary Elizabeth Elliot B:1714 D:1745
  40. Moses Higginbotham B:1714 D:1790
  41. James Whitlock B:1715 D:1749
  42. Aaron Garrison B:1715 D:1758
  43. Patience Kinchen B:1715 D:1765
  44. Agnes Christmas B:1715 D:1768
  45. Elizabeth Birdwell B:1717 D:1816
  46. Betty Guttery B:1718 D:1743
  47. Jane Sparks Miller B:1720 D:1756
  48. William Balum Dempsey B:1720 D:1777
  49. John Asbury B:1720 D:1812
  50. William Brown B:1722 D:1793
  51. Jonathan Stanford B:1723 D:1792
  52. Jean Bolling B:1724 D:1795
  53. Elender Nellie Last B:1725 D:1760
  54. Susanna Watson B:1728 D:1751
  55. Vincent Tapp B:1729 D:1791
  56. Mary Mollie Meadows B:1729 D:1800
  57. Robert Bolling B:1730 D:1775
  58. James Powell B:1733 D:1816
  59. Frances Kyle B:1734 D:1825
  60. Benjamin Bolling B:1734 D:1832
  61. Mary Leavette B:1735 D:1791
  62. Mary Mollie Jett B:1736 D:1823
  63. Mildred “Millie” Stephens B:1739 D:1781
  64. Charles Whitlock B:1739 D:1814
  65. Charles “Chowning” Chewning B:1739 D:1816
  66. John Wharton B:1741 D:1816
  67. Esther B:1742 D:1811
  68. Samuel C Mcgee McGhee B:1744 D:1814
  69. Rhoda Morris B:1745 D:1827
  70. William Garrison B:1746 D:1824
  71. Winifred “Winnie” Elizabeth Garrison B:1747 D:1835
  72. Grace Brown B:1748 D:1789
  73. Mary Elizabeth Stanford B:1749 D:1828
  74. Jane Bowling B:1750 D:1809
  75. James Bartholomew Warren B:1750 D:1813
  76. Samuel Young B:1751 D:1800
  77. Susan B:1752 D:
  78. George Asbury B:1756 D:1819
  79. Sarah Jane Yancey B:1756 D:1820
  80. Daniel Dempsey B:1759 D:1846
  81. James Moses “Old Moses” Higginbotham B:1760 D:1826
  82. Elizabeth Betsy Dempsey B:1760 D:1840
  83. Eleanor Garrison B:1762 D:1856
  84. Jarrett Bowling B:1762 D:1857
  85. James Tapp B:1764 D:1860
  86. Elizabeth “Betsy” Garrison B:1765 D:1826
  87. Ptolemy Powell B:1767 D:1843
  88. Wiley L McGee B:1769 D:1845
  89. Sarah “Sallie” Chewning B:1771 D:1834
  90. Andrew Austin Wharton B:1773 D:1835
  91. Frances Withers B:1774 D:1850
  92. Elizabeth Leavette B: D:1771
  93. Thomas Leavitt B: D:1771
  94. Thomas Whitlock B: D:1832

MapBox Time Period View of Ancestral BirthplacesB

Bottom line, I am enjoying browsing and navigating the “Genetic Communities” feature because I always wanted to geographically place my ancestors together along a timeline to see their proximity to each other and how their lives might have been the same or dissimilar. If you are an customer, who hadn’t yet heard about Ancestry’s newest feature and its options, I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think.

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