Our Family Finder test focuses on autosomal DNA, which is inherited from both your mother and your father, your four grandparents, your eight great-grandparents, etc. This test is designed to find living relatives on all of your ancestral lines within the last five generations and can also give you a breakdown of your ethnic makeup by percentage
We call our ethnic breakdown myOrigins. Since country borders change over time and DNA predates these artificially constructed borders, myOrigins provides percentages by region rather than country.
These broad regional affiliations, such as European or African, are further refined into primary population clusters.
Family Finder Matches
Family Finder matches are other individuals in our database who have also taken the Family Finder test and who, through autosomal DNA comparison, are found to share a common ancestor with you from ANY of your ancestral lines within the past five generations. The names and emails of your matches, an estimate of how closely related they are to you, and any genealogical information they have uploaded are provided to you in order to collaborate on genealogy and get past genealogical brick walls.
This list of matches is optional. You can choose whether or not you would like to share your information with matches, likewise, you will only be provided with matches who have opted in to sharing. At anytime, you will be given the ability to change your mind and opt in or opt out of sharing your information.
Important:While the Family Finder test provides a list of ethnic percentages and genetic matches, this test does not distinguish between maternal and paternal ethnicities or matches. In addition, ethnicities need to be 1% or greater to appear in myOrigins
Chromosome Browser
Another tool to help with your matches is our Chromosome Browser. This allows you to see where on your chromosomes a match shares DNA with you. The dark blue in the background represents your DNA, and the gray sections are the regions in which we do not look for genealogical matching. You can select up to five of your matches at a time to compare with your chromosomes. When you select these matches in the left hand column, the chromosome segments they share with you will display in different colors overlaid on top of your dark blue chromosomes. For further analysis, you can use the links at the top of the browser to download the raw data of your matches or view the data in a table.
