DNA & A Question of Paternity: Part 4 – Building a New Family Tree

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been describing a problem I’ve been working on: using DNA to learn about the ancestry of someone (“Bob”) who was uncertain of the identity of his biological father. After examining what the paper records suggested for Bob’s maternal and paternal ancestors, I looked at Bob’s top DNA matches. Some...

DNA & A Question of Paternity: Part 3 – Identifying Autosomal Matches

After putting together Bob’s maternal and paternal family tree (according to paper records), I took a closer look at his autosomal DNA matches to see how they compared.

DNA & A Question of Paternity: Part 2 – Starting with what we knew

Last week, I introduced a project I have been working on to try to use DNA to learn about the paternal ancestry of someone who wasn’t sure of their father’s identity. As I mentioned before, I won’t use any real names here; I’ll call the person testing “Bob.” We ordered tests, sent in saliva, waited,...

DNA & A Question of Paternity: Part 1 – Introduction

Almost two years ago, I was talking with an acquaintance who had been uncertain of the identity of his biological father for much of his life. I suggested the idea of DNA testing to him; I would help him, and we would see what we could learn about his genetic ancestry. He was open to...

Questioning the Question

Thinking carefully about a research question before diving in can help to a) highlight what I already know and b) define what, precisely, I want to answer with my research.