DNA Painter (https://dnapainter.com) is a tool for showing what segments of your chromosomes you inherited from which ancestors. I tried the tool after looking at a video introduction to DNA Painter by Blaine Bettinger, a genetic genealogist.

I obtained the segment data from GedMatch.com and mapped five of the cousins of my husband Greg. As we know how they are related and the DNA they share, we can see which segments Greg and his cousins inherited from their common ancestors.

As we know how Greg and his cousins are related, we know whether the match is paternal or maternal and can assign it to the relevant chromosomes. About 9% of Greg’s DNA is shared among these five cousins.

About 6 million of the 8 million family historians who have tested their DNA have used AncestryDNA for the test. Unfortunately, AncestryDNA does not currently display the information needed by DNA Painter to its users. To know which segments of which chromosomes match, one needs the data analysed through a third party tool such as GedMatch. The owner of the data needs to export their information from AncestryDNA and upload to GedMatch, a free utility.

This 2 minute video takes you through the steps to download your data, create a GedMatch account and upload your data. Here is a useful introductory perspective to GedMatch by Jim Bartlett, a genetic genealogy blogger.

Until AncestryDNA provides the tools to understand shared DNA matches properly, cousins need to make use of third party tools like GedMatch and DNA Painter to analyse their results.

It is very easy to add the information to the DNA Painter tool.

Link to the YouTubeVideo on DNA Painter (40 minutes):

Link to YouTube Video on downloading your data from AncestraDNA and uploading to GedMatch (2 minutes):

 

For other posts about my DNA research see my index page for my DNA research.