Just wondering.... Since we are suppose to have OUR parents, grandparents and great grandparents DNA in our cells with older generations randomly represented. If a parent and child test- are the longer segments they have in common most likely that of the parent surname and the branches of the grandparents and Great Grandparents. If this is right would the longest segment most likely represent say the parent line and then the next size segments the grandparents and the next the great grandparents? Karen

Dear Karen, Crossovers break up the long segments of DNA with each successive generation, so what you are suggesting below is essentially true. You have to do a chromosome by chromosome analysis to see which segments came from which grandparent, great grandparent, etc. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Karen Hodges Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 8:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] cM segments for close ancestors If a parent and child test- are the longer segments they have in common most likely that of the parent surname and the branches of the grandparents and Great Grandparents. If this is right would the longest segment most likely represent say the parent line and then the next size segments the grandparents and the next the great grandparents? Karen

I'm not certain this is what you're asking, but longer segments generally mean that your common ancestor is more recent. That is a broad statement about large samples, and there is a lot of variability in individual cases. Perhaps this diagram of segments found between a mother/son and their cousin will serve to illustrate the range of what you might see going from one generation to the next: http://dnacousins.com/Fam_Inheritance_recomb_example.GIF Ann Turner On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 8:29 PM, Karen Hodges <[email protected]> wrote: > Just wondering.... > > Since we are suppose to have OUR parents, grandparents and great > grandparents DNA in our cells with older generations randomly represented. > > If a parent and child test- are the longer segments they have in common > most likely that of the parent surname and the branches of the grandparents > and Great Grandparents. > > If this is right would the longest segment most likely represent say the > parent line and then the next size segments the grandparents and the next > the great grandparents? > > Karen > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >