Robert Barton’s DNA Map

Robert Barton’s autosomal DNA test results show that he clearly descends from Europeans, and mostly around England, but the details are more complicated. DNA can tell us a lot about a person’s genetic roots, and it does it by comparing sections of DNA on different chromosomes against other people’s distributions of DNA, and where those people and groups are living now. This is the simple explanation; I don’t understand all of the more complicated explanations (yet…), or the math. But essentially, the more people that do DNA tests with a given company, the more accurate the DNA results can be because there is a bigger sample to compare to. Each company also uses their own algorithms and parameters to group people, so even with the same DNA, you can get slightly different results from different companies. And some companies allow you to upload your DNA results from others, so you can analyze the same DNA in different ways.

Ancestry uses 1,800 regions. FamilyTreeDNA tests uses 90 reference populations. You can see some of the differences in breakdown in the two maps and percentages of ancestry– from Ancestry and from FamilyTreeDNA. Ancestry.com can also connect DNA to a specific community within a region. In Robert Barton’s case, you can see that it shows that he has significant ancestry connected to Yorkshire & the East Midlands in northern England.

Ancestry Map for Robert Barton from Ancestry.com, 26 Jan 2023

Ancestry Map for Robert Barton from FamilyTreeDNA, 26 Jan 2023

In the U.S., Ancestry also connects him to communities in Delaware Valley, Chesapeake & Midwest Settlers and Southern Midwestern Settlers (shown in purple and green on the map)—all of which I can associate with people in his family tree. Having a community in an area on ancestry.com indicates that your ancestors (or living family) likely lived in this area for years, based on shared DNA with current populations. The farthest Barton ancestor I have for Robert is Isaac Barton (Robert’s 2nd great grandfather), born in 1793 in Baltimore, MD, and living in Maryland before moving west to Tennessee (where he met his wife, who was born there), then on to settle in Illinois. Robert’s 2nd great grandfather through his mother’s line was Edward Morgan, whose family spent generations in West Virginia (including before it was West Virginia) and Ohio, and marrying people from the same area, before moving to Illinois. You can see these areas in purple and green on the map below.

Ancestry U.S. Community Map for Robert Barton, 3 Feb 2023

While these maps are fun, from a genealogy perspective it is just a start. DNA results provide a lot of additional data and connections that can be used to support/disprove theories or provide new avenues of research alongside other documents and family trees. I will be exploring more of the data and connections for Robert Barton (from this autosomal DNA test and from the y-DNA test he recently took, alongside some previous research) to look into some specific questions I have, like which Barton ancestor came from England and when. I will let you know what I find!

Anything you want me to investigate? Let me know in the comments.