<div id="attachment_22956" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22956" class="wp-image-22956 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-300x203.jpg" alt="IMG_2762" width="300" height="203" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-300x203.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-768x518.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-1024x691.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-880x594.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762-1180x797.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_2762.jpg 1988w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Barbara Weir, right, with her daughter Casey.</div>
Not everyone who tries 23andMe has the same sort of reaction to his or her results as Barbara Weir.


“It’s mind boggling,” said the 87 year-old who lives in San Diego. “Next to marrying my husband and having my children it’s the most exciting thing in my life. It explains so much about me – who and what I am.”
With the help of her daughter, Casey Spaccarelli, a doctor who lives in Chicago, Barbara not only found out that she’d been adopted – something she’d never known – but she also connected with and then met her half brother in person.
“One of the big things for me is that it explains so much,” she said. “Looking back I was nothing like my family. We had different aptitudes and interests. I remember my sister once telling me ‘we’re not alike at all.’ I wanted to be like her and my family, but I just wasn’t.”
<div id="attachment_22955" style="width: 269px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22955" class="wp-image-22955 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-259x300.jpg" alt="IMG_4728-1" width="259" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-259x300.jpg 259w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-883x1024.jpg 883w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-768x891.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-758x880.jpg 758w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4728-1-1017x1180.jpg 1017w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px" />Barbara and her brother Marvin soon after meeting for the first time.</div>
The revelation that she’d been adopted and that she had biological family, including a half brother, who had lived in the Boston area, didn’t happen all at once. It started with a lot less drama, with Casey deciding to create a family tree and look at her ancestry. She tested first with another company.
“I did it for fun,” she said.
But very quickly she discovered a lot about herself that didn’t match what she had always been told. For one, she has about a quarter Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
“No one in the family knew of any Jewish heritage, only German,” Casey said.
Eventually Barbara tested and it turned out that she has about 50 percent Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Casey tested with 23andMe thinking that perhaps the result was a mistake. It wasn’t. So she had her mother and her mother’s sister, Nancy, test on 23andMe. Her mother’s results confirmed the Ashkenazi ancestry, but her mother and Nancy didn’t have any overlapping DNA. They weren’t biologically related, according to the test.


“So I told my mom, ‘I think you may have been adopted?’” Casey said. “And she just said, ‘Oh I don’t know, maybe,’ and left it at that.”


But Casey wanted to figure this out. Fortunately she found a close relative connection in her 23andMe results with a name she didn’t recognize. So Casey contacted him. His name is Steve and she told him a little bit about herself and asked if he had any family in the Boston area, where Barbara had been born in the late 1920s.


“He said ‘my whole family is from Boston,’” Casey said.


He was open and helpful. Steve also had a lot of family history that he was willing to share with Casey, names and dates. That all became very important for Casey, who, by triangulating information, figured out that Steve’s grandfather Karl was also likely to be her grandfather, and Barbara’s father. Fortunately Steve’s uncle Marvin was still alive and they decided to talk to him.


“That got the ball rolling,” Casey said.


She knew they were close to solving this mystery. After looking at a few high school photos of Marvin and his sisters, Casey was pretty sure she’d found her mother’s biological family. A few weeks later Marvin, who grew up in Boston but now lived very close to Barbara in California, tested with 23andMe.
Bingo.
He turned out to be Barbara’s half brother.
The two arranged to finally meet. In photos they look remarkably similar with the same slim build and smiles.
“I’d never seen anyone who looked like me before,” said Barbara, surprised to be able to see family resemblances in her new-found brother and in photos of her sister.
Marvin’s father, Karl, had been a successful business owner in Boston, who had emigrated from Russia. He had a big family – Marvin, who is a year younger than Barbara, was the last of the family’s six children.
Casey still doesn’t know the circumstances of Barbara’s conception, only that she and Marvin have the same biological father, but different mothers. Barbara’s parents lived in Boston at the time she was adopted but later moved to Nashville where she grew up.


“So my mother found out she was adopted at 87 years of age,” Casey said. “It had been this huge family secret only known to her adoptive mother and the secret had died with her, until now. Until 23andMe.”


Even learning this so late in life was hugely important for Barbara. Things she wasn’t sure about in the past suddenly made sense.
“It’s amazing to learn this all at my age,” said Barbara. “I finally found out who I am.”

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Who I Am

Selma Spieler wished she knew more about her father.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22922" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22922" class="size-medium wp-image-22922" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Avram-and-family-225x300.jpg" alt="Selma's father Abraham and her mother Gisha &quot;Gussie&quot; and her sister Aida." width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Avram-and-family-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Avram-and-family.jpg 480w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Selma&#8217;s father Abraham and her mother Gisha &#8220;Gussie&#8221; and her sister Aida.</div>
She knew he came from Russia, was generous – regularly bringing food to neighbors and sending money to a cousin in Israel who was studying to be a doctor. And she knew her father worked hard, toiling at night in a bagel factory in Brooklyn after he immigrated to New York in the 1920s.
But there was a lot she didn’t know about him.
Before she could learn more, her father, Abraham “Avram” Leib Greenberg, died. Selma was 14. It was 1946 and at that moment it sunk in that she’d never be able to ask him about his past, about the seven siblings he left behind in Russia and Poland, or how his family was able to survive pogroms, the violence of World War I and the Russian Revolution.
Selma thought she lost all that family history with her father, a man born in the 1800s, who survived world-shattering changes that swept through Europe before he came to America. She was sure that the history of his life vanished with him. She thought that all the family he left behind was gone too, swept away in the violence that came after her father immigrated. Now in her 80s, she’d long ago given up on finding out anything more about her father and his family.
“My mother just assumed that they had all died in the Holocaust,” her daughter Risa Rubin said.


It’s an experience many Jews with family roots in Eastern Europe can relate to – large parts of their family history erased by the Holocaust and the upheaval of the Second World War.
But more than seventy years after her father died, Selma learned with the help of 23andMe bits about her father’s history that she never knew before. She and her daughter Risa discovered the fate of his siblings. Some were indeed lost in the Holocaust but others survived. And most astounding of all, for Selma and her daughter, is that using 23andMe they were able to find some of her father’s family in Israel and travel to meet them in person including meeting Selma’s first cousin Fania.


“If my mother and I had not done this we would have never known,” Risa said. “She was so emotional, she cried when she found all this out… this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.”


This journey of discovery started when Risa and her brother Eric joined 23andMe. Risa was interested in learning more about herself and her ancestry. And then when her mother also used 23andMe, Risa helped her connect with a previously unknown relative named Ayelet, who lives in Israel.
<div id="attachment_22924" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22924" class="size-medium wp-image-22924" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_3721-300x225.jpg" alt="Risa and her cousin Ayet after meeting for the first time in Israel." width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_3721-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_3721-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_3721-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_3721-880x660.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_3721-1180x885.jpg 1180w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Risa and her cousin Ayelet after meeting for the first time in Israel.</div>
“I noticed that my mom and Ayelet shared DNA, including a segment that was completely identical,” Risa said.


Before that moment, Risa and her brother had assumed that all of her Grandfather’s family had been killed in the Holocaust. But she quickly learned that she had dozens of living relatives on that side of her family, who mostly live in Israel. Ayelet has a brother who had already done an extensive family tree and it proved to be a goldmine for Risa and her mother. Together with the help of Ayelet, Selma’s cousin Fania and another cousin named Naomi, they began filling in the pieces of their missing tree including finding the children and grandchildren of Selma’s uncles, her father’s brothers as well as the children of her aunt. They also learned more about Abraham’s life before he came to America, and that all but four of his siblings had survived the Holocaust, many of them had immigrated to Palestine before the war or wound up in Israel after it.
Ayelet’s great grandfather was Selma’s father’s brother. Ayelet had even known of Selma’s father – his Uncle Abraham – but he’d been told that Abraham had never made it out of
Russia. Selma’s cousin, Fania, however was told that Abraham had made it out and wound up in America, but she knew little else.
Their relatives in Israel were able to offer documents, photos and family history for Selma – information about her father that she never knew.
The documents had information about where he moved in Russia and then Poland, before he immigrated to America. Her cousin Fania recognized the photo of her grandparents that Risa and Selma had brought with them. Selma also learned more about his siblings, Moshe, Haya, Isaac, Slova, Rachel, Yaakov and Shlomo.
The trip allowed Risa and her mother to connect not just with family in Israel, but others in the US and in Russia, a total of more than 50 relatives in all.
“The process of finding our family has been an amazing experience. It was bashert — meant to be,” Risa said.  
“Thank you 23andMe for finding my family.”

Meant to Be

We’re returning one more time to the story of Jessica and Alice, and how they used 23andMe to unravel a <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/jesss-story/">century old mystery</a>.
<div id="attachment_22174" style="width: 236px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22174" class="wp-image-22174 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Phil-and-Sam-226x300.jpeg" alt="Jess's grandfather Phil and her great grandfather Sam. " width="226" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Phil-and-Sam-226x300.jpeg 226w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Phil-and-Sam-662x880.jpeg 662w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Phil-and-Sam.jpeg 665w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 226px) 100vw, 226px" />Jess&#8217;s grandfather Phil and her great grandfather Sam.</div>

We first <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/jesss-story/">wrote about the story</a> back in February 2015 and again <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/the-other-side-of-the-story/">a few weeks later</a>, and we aren’t the only ones fascinated by it.


Scott Fisher, the host of the syndicated family history radio program <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-104-23andme-dna-day-and-pursuing-a-jail-break/">Extreme Genes</a>, dedicated his most recent show to their story.
Fisher has <a href="http://extremegenes.com/story-and-photos-of-two-men-switched-at-birth-in-1913-with-their-oops-fathers/">a great interview</a> with Jess, Alice, and genetic genealogist CeCe Moore, who each detail how they worked over three years to piece together a mystery that probably couldn’t have been solved any other way, and it all started when Alice tested with 23andMe.


“I took a DNA test and the results came back all the way wrong,” Alice told Fischer.


Or at least that’s what she thought.
Raised to believe she was three-quarters Irish, Alice’s ancestry results came back showing that she had 50 percent Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. This sparked what turned into years of trying to figure out if this was all a mistake or something else. Her mother and father weren’t around to ask anymore, so Alice eventually had all seven of her siblings tested with 23andMe.
They all showed the same result. They were half Ashkenazi.
How that was possible was the mystery to Alice, so she began working to solve it. She enlisted the help of CeCe, no stranger of difficult family mysteries, and the two got to work.
“There are unexpected surprises in pretty much every case I work on,” said CeCe.


This one was no different, and CeCe and Alice dove deeper looking at paper records and came up with some theories. If it was just Alice’s results that were different, perhaps the difference could be explained by a single infidelity, but everyone in her family had the same ancestry profile. Obviously something about their family history was different than they suspected. Alice’s father, James, had had a tough upbringing. He knew his parents but had been raised in an orphanage.
Alice began zeroing in on her father and the possibility that   he was switched at birth. But how could you figure something like that out?

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				<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-23096'>
				Alice&#8217;s grandfather, John, who is believed to be Jess&#8217;s great-grandfather.
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				<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/filename-1-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-23095" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/filename-1-150x150.png 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/filename-1-271x271.png 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/filename-1-372x372.png 372w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />
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				Jess&#8217;s Grandfather, Phil.
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				<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/img_9061-150x150.jpeg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-23094" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/img_9061-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/img_9061-271x271.jpeg 271w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />
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				Jess&#8217;s great-grandfather, Sam, who is believed to be Alice&#8217;s grandfather.
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				Alice&#8217;s Father, James.
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He was born at Fordham hospital in the Bronx in 1913, so CeCe and Alice began looking at birth records for babies born on the same day, in the same hospital. Perhaps, they thought, a nurse accidentally put Alice’s father in another child’s crib. CeCe and Alice even went so far as approaching the descendants of a man born that same day with a similar last name and had him test with 23andMe, but they found no match.


And then last year, Jessica, who lives in North Carolina, signed up for 23andMe. Like Alice she also got a big surprise.


“I knew my mom is Japanese, Filipino and Native American,” Jessica said.


Her dad was a bit of a mystery because he’d died when Jessica was still young, but she knew that he was Jewish. But the results came back and instead of showing she had Jewish ancestry, it showed she was a quarter Irish.
“It didn’t match what I knew,” Jessica said.
That might have been it, but that one of Alice’s nephews also tested with 23andMe. Alice found that she shared no DNA with him, that they in fact were not biologically related. Although that would seem to be another dead end, Alice knew that his results could help her solve the mystery.
When he shared with Alice some of his DNA Relative matches, she saw a name she didn’t recognize, Jessica.


“When I saw her listing, I started shaking,” said Alice.
She knew this could be the key.
So Alice sent her a message.
“Help solve a hundred year-old mystery,” Alice said in her message.
Jessica was intrigued.
When they connected, Alice immediately asked whether Jessica had been surprised by her ancestry results.
And then Alice floated her idea, that Jessica’s grandfather and Alice’s father, who were both born on the same day at the same hospital in the Bronx in 1913, had been switched at birth.
For Jessica, the whole thing sounded intriguing. She wanted to know. For Alice, who’d resigned herself to never solving the mystery, she could hardly contain herself.
When they shared family photos, it seemed even clearer that the mystery had been solved.


“You can’t look and come to any other conclusion,” said Fischer in the show.


For CeCe, the photos illustrate something she’s seen in many cases. Here are these two men, clearly not biologically related to the parents who raised them, and for those men how out of place they sometimes must have felt.
It’s also intriguing to think about how their lives might have been different, said Jessica.
“That might be the strangest part,” Jessica said. “They ended up living different lives.”

Family Mystery Solved with 23andMe

A Florida amnesiac has finally figured out his identity with a lot of help from strangers, genetic genealogist CeCe Moore and DNA testing. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22891" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Benjaman_Kyle-199x300.jpg" alt="Benjaman_Kyle" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Benjaman_Kyle-199x300.jpg 199w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Benjaman_Kyle.jpg 401w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />

Benjaman Kyle, who was <a href="http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1007umga.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">found beaten</a> and semi-conscious behind a south Georgia Burger King 11 years ago, has spent the last several years in Jacksonville Florida, working in a kitchen. His story received national attention with coverage on <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129668438" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NPR</a> and Dr. Phil to name a few.


“My identity has been found,” Kyle posted on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/benjaman.kyle.9/posts/10207885434472513" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook page</a>. “It is now the start of the eleventh year since this began and I never thought this day would come. A little over two months ago I was informed by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cecemoore1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CeCe Moore</a> that they had established my Identity using DNA.” 


It was thought that the beating left him with “retrograde amnesia,” so that he could remember more recent event, but the past was largely blank. CeCe spent two years working with a team comparing matches from several DNA testing companies, including 23andMe where he had more than half a dozen close cousin matches and dozens of more distant cousins.

Looking at surnames, geography and the little information that Benjaman had – which included a specific birth date – she was able to find several likely matches, according to a <a href="http://www.news4jax.com/news/man-with-no-name-finally-knows-his-real-identity/35286594" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Florida News station</a> that covered the story this week.
One of the few memories he retained was of Indianapolis. The search connected him with family in Indiana, including several brothers.
Over the summer testing confirmed a family match.
He didn’t reveal his real name yet because:
“I am reserving my new name, for now, until I have met my new found relatives,” he said.

<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m36CvhghVq8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

DNA Testing Helps Amnesiac

Scott Fisher, the host of the syndicated family history radio show and podcast <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-104-23andme-dna-day-and-pursuing-a-jail-break/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Extreme Genes</a>, talked earlier this month with 23andMe’s Senior Director of <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-21027" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/@PITER-23andMe-JoannaMountain-43.jpg" alt="@PITER-23andMe-JoannaMountain-43" width="200" height="285" />Research Joanna Mountain.


For this episode, Fischer and Joanna spoke again about ancestry features focusing in on some of the more common questions from customers. Fischer previously spoke with 23andMe population geneticist Kasia Byrc, PhD, about some of the science behind DNA testing, and he will continue to feature an expert from 23andMe on his show each month to delve into the ins and out of DNA testing for ancestry purposes.
Talking to Joanna, Fisher learned that many customers from the United States have family stories about Native American ancestry and they often test with 23andMe to explore that side of their family history.
“Sometimes they find it in the DNA, but sometimes it’s not there,” Joanna said during the show.


That doesn’t always mean that those family stories are wrong, but that the Native American ancestry has been lost over the generations, Joanna said. The DNA evidence might not be there anymore but there may still be cultural evidence of that ancestry.
Fischer also asked about adoptees and what typically motivates them to test.


“Actually they have a lot of the same questions (as other customers),” Joanna said.
But for adoptees, testing is often the only option to find out some very basic information, like their ancestry, said Joanna, who oversees research projects and the development of ancestry product offerings at 23andMe.
The show also featured David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and American Ancestors, Sarah O’Connor of <a href="http://www.geneartistry.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">GeneArtistry</a>.com, and Tom Perry from <a href="http://www.tmcplace.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TMCPlace.com</a>.


Check out the podcast <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-104-23andme-dna-day-and-pursuing-a-jail-break/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

Another Extreme Genes Podcast

Scientists have unearthed a trove of bones in a South African cave belonging to a previously unidentified early human relative.
<div id="attachment_22837" style="width: 277px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22837" class="size-medium wp-image-22837" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/F1.large-1-267x300.jpg" alt="Composite skeleton of Homo nadeli along with other bones found at the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. Photo: Lee Berger, Wits, photographed at Evolutionary Studies Institute" width="267" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/F1.large-1-267x300.jpg 267w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/F1.large-1-768x863.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/F1.large-1-911x1024.jpg 911w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/F1.large-1-783x880.jpg 783w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/F1.large-1-1050x1180.jpg 1050w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 267px) 100vw, 267px" />Composite skeleton of Homo nadeli along with other bones found at the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. Photo: Lee Berger, Wits, photographed at Evolutionary Studies Institute</div>
<h2>Rising Star</h2>
Found in the “Rising Star Cave,” the new species has been dubbed homo naledi – naledi is the Sosetho word for star – and fills in more detail about the story of human evolution.
“We’ve found a new species that we are placing in the genus Homo, which is really quite remarkable,” <a href="https://twitter.com/LeeRberger">Lee Berger</a>, a paleoanthropologist, who led the research told the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/10/new-species-of-ancient-human-discovered-claim-scientists">Guardian</a>.
There’s much to ponder with the new finding and some intriguing implications discussed at length in two <a href="http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e09560">new papers</a> about the bones as well as a new <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/dawn-of-humanity.html">Nova</a> special. For one, the find adds more information in the big gap in the fossil record tracing back to the dawn of humanity. 
<h2>Homo Naledi</h2>
One of the papers also details where and how the bones were found and covers various theories about how they got there. The implication from that paper is that the bones – more than a 1,000 bones and bone fragments from at least 15 individuals – were possibly brought there for burial. If true this would suggest that homo naledi were advanced enough to actually have a ritual for burying their dead.
“If true it points to advance behavior,” <a href="http://bluelionphotos.blogspot.co.za/2015/09/the-rising-star-interviews.html">said John Hawkes</a>, and paleoanthropologist from the University of Wisconsin who is a co-author of the paper.
That would also point to such things as social bonds, and other kinds of communal structures.
The excavation and its implications are covered at length in the upcoming issue of <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/">National Geographic</a>.
<h2>Ancient Human Relative</h2>
The team believes the bones &#8211; as yet undated &#8211; represent a new ancient human relative that adds another chapter in the human story.
The bones have some characteristics that are similar to both modern humans and other ancient human species that pre-date it. They were long-legged and slender with hands and feet similar to humans, but their brains were only about a third of the size of modern humans.
In the wonderful <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/dawn-of-humanity.html">Nova</a> program, scientists say the find should more clearly change how we look at the human family tree, where there were likely many different species that branched out in different ways, some crossing back to contribute to what ultimately became modern humans, while others went extinct.

Hello Cousin

When he was 21, Gary Skillings tried to contact his mother through a nun at the Catholic orphanage from which he was adopted in the 1950s, but she didn’t want to see him.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_22818" style="width: 168px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22818" class="size-full wp-image-22818" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/safe_image.php_.jpg" alt="Gary Skillings' Photo" width="158" height="158" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/safe_image.php_.jpg 158w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/safe_image.php_-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 158px) 100vw, 158px" />Gary Skillings&#8217; Photo</div>
“That was kind of a heartbreaker,” Skilling told <a href="http://www.sunjournal.com/news/lewiston-auburn/2015/08/30/dna-test-brings-florida-man-home-maine/1771495">the Sun Journal newspape</a>r in Maine. “But I honored her wish.”


Although he longed to know more about his background and who his mother was, Gary didn’t search any further after that failed attempt to make a connection. But he was left with at least one bit of information, his mother’s first name, Aline. Fast-forward a few decades, Gary was able to use 23andMe and genealogical records to learn more about his mother, and connect with cousins he never knew he had.


His story, nicely told by the local paper in Lewiston Maine, includes meeting more than 50 relatives, cousins, aunt and uncles who welcomed him into the family.


“They had this reception for me and all these people showed up,” he told the newspaper. “They were all total strangers to me, yet all related.”


They shared photos and family stories with him. He learned more about his now deceased mother, Aline Mary Cotes, and his out-of-wedlock birth. He found a close cousin, who knew about his birth and actually knew about Gary’s effort to contact his mother so long ago. She had vowed to keep it all a secret.


Check out the story <a href="http://www.sunjournal.com/news/lewiston-auburn/2015/08/30/dna-test-brings-florida-man-home-maine/1771495">here</a>.

Mending a Broken Heart

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-haplogroups">What are haplogroups?</h2>



Haplogroups are genetic classifications or ancestral groupings within a population, typically defined by shared, inherited genetic markers or mutations. These markers are passed down from a common ancestor. They can be traced through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) for maternal haplogroups and the Y chromosome for paternal haplogroups. Haplogroups provide insights into human populations&#8217; historical migrations and evolutionary history, helping researchers and genealogists understand the genetic relationships and ancestral origins of individuals and groups.



Many 23andMe customers that contact Customer Care are confused by their haplogroup assignments and what they actually mean.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="432" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-1024x432.png" alt="" class="wp-image-33670" title="haplogroup map" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-1024x432.png 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-300x127.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-768x324.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-880x371.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline-1180x498.png 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Haplo-inline.png 1501w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



If you still aren’t sure what your haplogroup is, check out our <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/?_gl=1*10vpw0b*_ga*NDA5NTc3MDk2LjE2ODA4MDgwMTU.*_ga_G330GF3ZFF*MTY5NzEyNjEzOC41OC4xLjE2OTcxMjYxNDAuMC4wLjA.">DNA Ancestry Test</a> as a first step. <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">Knowing your haplogroup</a>, and how you can use it, can give you much more clarity about your own ancestry. So in the interest of helping you out, we will walk through an example of a <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/23andmes-updated-maternal-haplogroup-report">maternal</a> and <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/updates-to-23andme-paternal-haplogroup-assignments">paternal haplogroup</a> assignment, and explain how knowing your haplogroups can place you in the human family tree and connect you to your ancestry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-haplogroup-assignment-example">Haplogroup Assignment Example</h2>



In this case we&#8217;re using someone who is Asian, who has roots&nbsp; in Southeast Asia. But his maternal haplogroup – B4’5 and more specifically subgroup B5a1a – is most commonly found among Native Americans of the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-haplogroups-can-help-uncover-the-migration-of-your-ancestors">Haplogroups Can Help Uncover the Migration of Your Ancestors</h2>



So why is that?



What connects him to Native Americans?



This is where understanding a little bit about haplogroups is helpful in placing you and your ancestry in the broader context of human history. Each haplogroup describes individual branches – or closely related groups of branches – on the genetic family tree of all humans. All members of a haplogroup trace their ancestry back to a single individual.



In this case, the individual shares his maternal haplogroup with many Native Americans because 12,000 years ago people migrated from Asia to Alaska, when sea levels were lower.



Or another way of looking at it is that descendants of his ancient maternal ancestor – a common ancestor he shares with many Native Americans – had crossed the Bering Land Bridge to populate the Americas.



Looking deeper into his results his maternal haplogroup is a subgroup of B4’5, specifically B5a1a. It has its own history where it broke off from B4’5 in Southeast Asia.



Recent migration patterns have altered the global distribution of this haplogroup, but that ancient history is written in his DNA and being able to read that and identify his maternal haplogroup connects him to that history.



The ability to trace back a person’s maternal haplogroup back so far – more than 50,000 years in the case of B4’5 – has to do with how it is passed down to each of us from our mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, and so on back in time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-difference-between-maternal-and-paternal-haplogroups">The Difference Between Maternal and Paternal Haplogroups</h2>



Understanding the differences between a maternal and paternal haplogroup, goes can help you better use this information to better understand your ancestral origins.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-maternal-haplogroups">Maternal Haplogroups</h6>



Maternal haplogroups are determined by defining variants in your mitochondrial DNA. Everyone &nbsp;inherits &nbsp;their mitochondria from their mothers. Unlike your other pieces of DNA, your mitochondrial DNA is the only type of DNA that is found outside of the nucleus. For this reason, your mitochondrial DNA does not recombine with other types of DNA. Because your mitochondria is inherited directly from you mother and undergoes very little recombination, you will share the same maternal haplogroup with any relative you share a direct maternal line with. For example, you, your mother, your brother, your sister, your maternal aunt, your maternal grandmother, etc. would all share the same maternal haplogroup as you. And that maternal haplogroup traces back through the generations to a single mutation at a specific place and time.



In the case we&#8217;re looking at, his maternal haplogroup is one that is shared by many people, not only of Han Chinese ancestry, but also with many Polynesians, Native Americans, and Southeast Asians.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-paternal-haplogroups">Paternal Haplogroups</h6>



Now that we’ve looked at maternal haplogroups, we can turn our attention to paternal haplogroup assignments. In this case the person&#8217;s paternal haplogroup assignment is O3a3c1*.



It traces to East Asia and is also common among Han Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and Malaysians. The paternal haplogroup assignment is &nbsp;determined by defining variants in your Y Chromosome. The Y chromosome is the sex-determining chromosome for males, which men inherit from their fathers. Therefore, unless you inherited a Y chromosome from your father, you will not have a paternal haplogroup assignment. (You can find out more about this <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/a-fathers-day-ode-to-the-y-chromosome/">here</a>.) This is why women will see this page is unavailable to them within their 23andMe account, but in a moment we’ll explain how women can determine their paternal haplogroup.



First understanding a little bit more about the the Y chromosome is helpful. The Y chromosome does undergo recombination with the X chromosome, but only does so at the ends. So about 95 percent of the Y chromosome remains relatively intact across generations. For this reason, the Y chromosome is a reflection of your ancient paternal ancestry. You would therefore share a paternal haplogroup assignment with any male relative that you shared a direct paternal line with.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-paternal-haplogroups-and-women">Paternal Haplogroups and Women</h6>



A woman can infer her paternal haplogroup if a male relative on her paternal line has been genotyped by 23andMe.



Because both the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA change so little over generations, they are very informative about your ancient ancestry. But that is not to say that they do not change at all. In fact, &nbsp;each letter and number that you see within your haplogroup corresponds to a set of defining mutations in your mitochondrial DNA or your &nbsp;Y chromosome. This marks a period in time when your haplogroup branched off into a distinct line. So, for example, it may mark when a population first migrated out of Africa, or when another group became geographically isolated.



<h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-assigning-haplogroups">Assigning Haplogroups</h6>



23andMe is able to trace your ancestry based on these mutations. That is because they occurred in distinct geographical locations during specific periods of time. Haplogroup assignments can even be traced back to specific languages.



That DNA evidence is often corroborated by the fossil record. Our oldest fossils date back 200,000 years. They were found in Omo Kibish in Ethiopia. According to genetic and paleontological records, Homo sapiens only began migrating out of Africa 60,000-70,000 years ago. They moved from Africa into the Eurasian continent.



Some of these migrants moved along the Indian coast reaching first Southeast Asia. They then migrated to Australia around 50,000 years ago. Since then, different migratory events have spread our species across the continents along different routes and paths.



We are able to trace migratory patterns based on defining mutations in mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA.



In the case in this post, ancient ancestors who were part of his maternal haplogroup were among a group of individuals who were in Southeast Asia. Some of those individuals eventually migrated across the Bering land bridge to populate the Americas. Some stayed around East Asia and developed some new defining mutations in their mitochondrial DNA making them B5a1a.



It is important to keep in mind that your mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome account for very small portion of your DNA. It is also a small portion of your overall ancestry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-autosomal-dna">Autosomal DNA</h2>



As most haplogroups arose over tens of thousands of years ago, these pieces of DNA generally reflect your very ancient ancestry. It&#8217;s possible for two people to share the same haplogroup assignment but no recent ancestry. So for example, while you may share a paternal haplogroup with Stephen Colbert, you probably don’t share any recent common ancestors.



A large portion of our DNA is found within your autosomal DNA. This DNA undergoes recombination with each successive generation. Your results analyzing your autosomal DNA therefore generally reflect your ancestry from within the past five to ten generations. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the ancestry found within your haplogroup or your <a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry">Ancestry Composition</a> to differ from your own. This does not mean that any of these pieces are incorrect. They are each simply describing a different part of your rich and unique ancestry.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Learn More</h2>



You can find out if your <a href="https://www.23andme.com/test-info/genetic-health/">genetics</a> might Increase your risk for any health conditions with 23andMe. You can see a more recent <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/23andme-updates-paternal-haplogroup-assignments">blog post about haplogroups here</a>.

Haplogroups Explained

Scott Fisher, the host of the nationally syndicated family history radio show Extreme Genes, spent his last show focused on 23andMe’s ancestry offerings, explaining a little bit about the science of <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-22357" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KasiaB-1-200x300.jpg" alt="KasiaB 1" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KasiaB-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/KasiaB-1.jpg 576w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />DNA testing for genealogy from our very own population geneticist Kasia Byrc, PhD.


Kasia has been pretty busy lately, participating recently in the <a href="http://globalfamilyreunion.com/">Global Family Reunion</a>, and before that the <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/everyone-is-related-the-big-data-proves-it/">South By Southwest</a> festival in Austin, as well as writing about the <a href="http://kasiabryc.com/publications/index.html">complex admixture of African Americans</a>, Latinos and Europeans in the United States. Her research has helped show how our DNA can inform us about human migration and history in the United States over the last few hundred years.
<a href="http://extremegenes.com/category/podcast-archive/">Extreme Genes</a> is syndicated on more than 30 stations across the country and also has a regular podcast that covers all things related to genealogy. Fisher himself is a national expert in the field of genealogy, and the interview with Kasia was meant to offer those interested in tapping into the 23andMe tool box to improve their own genealogical searches.
During this episode on 23andMe, Fisher and Kasia covered some of the science behind using genetic data to help inform people about their ancestry.
Fisher explained how his own results – connections with several different distant cousins – helped him leverage what his family already knew about their history to learn even more.
“Using DNA is a fantastic tool to dig into your own history,” Kasia said during the show.
Along with detailing some of the science, Kasia, who was an NIH Ruth L. Kirschetein National Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School before coming to work at 23andMe, Inc., also shared a few stories from 23andMe customers and how they used their results to discover more about their families.


Check out the podcast <a href="http://extremegenes.com/ep-99-23andme-on-dna-genealogy/">here</a>.

Ancestry Service — Page 19