The 3D Chromosome Browser actually is one of the free tools on GEDmatch, so you can try it out
with your free account. It is powerful because it actually does some of the functions that you would
have to use the Multiple Kit Analysis or some of the paid tools for in order to get similar
results. The other thing about the 3D Chromosome Browser is that it is unique to GEDmatch. Now,
you may be saying, well, I've seen how 23andMe and Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage. You actually can
use those browsers to look at multiple people at the same time, but that is not the same as
the 3D Chromosome Browser. In a nutshell, with a regular Chromosome Browser, you are able to
compare yourself to one to five or six or seven, or even more other people at the same time. So,
you'd say one, two, three, or five, or ten comparisons with a 3D Chromosome Browser. You're
actually comparing everybody that you put in there to everybody else. So, if you have three people,
you're comparing three people all to those other three people. Now, this may sound a little bit
like triangulation. And it is. And that's why I say this tool can get you some of the results
that others tools can get you that are on the paid side. So, in the 3D Chromosome Browser
initial part, it is going to ask you to enter between 3 and 10 kit numbers. My guess is they
limited 10 kit numbers simply because the amount of data that you're being shown would simply be
overwhelming, and it would be hard to make heads or tails of it. I'm only going to use three kits
today. And these three kits are all related to each other. I think third cousins are closer
between all of them and I. I've got the first page of the results. Now, I'll mention that, again
that, there's actually two pages. We're going to go to the second page in a second. But what
I wanted to show you is this first page because this is actually the part of the 3D Chromosome
Browser that I use the most. What this is is. This is going to go through and list all of the
segments that people in this group of three have in common. So, the first table here is how what
segments they have in common. So, we can see this first-person BL has 11 segments in common with JY.
And then BL has one segment in common with Drew D. J Y has three segments in common with Drew D. So,
you can start to see right off the bat, I'm not comparing one person to the other two. I'm
comparing all three. If you have used the Matrix tool in the Multiple Kit Analysis,
this next one will be very similar. This is the total amount of shared centimorgan. And again,
you can see it's comparing between all of them. So, I know how much each combination shares. Now,
I've done just three here, but you can do up to 10 on this tool. Next, then, is the X chromosome.
It's seeing how much they share. Now, I happen to know that these are all related through their
paternal sides. And so, I would not be expecting any X-sharing because they're all males as well.
Now, we get to the chromosome summary, and this is going chromosome by chromosome. It tells us
how many segments for each individual and then also the largest segments and where they are
from. And then, we get to the details. This is really the same thing as this table right here,
only it is expanded out into each individual segment. So, if we just start Chromosome Number 2,
we see that there's four matching segments in this set. When we go down to this table, I can count
one, two, three, four. There's my four matching segments on Chromosome Number 2. And then,
I can also see where that is. Now, this range is going to be the lowest of those segments to the
highest of those segments. So, if I go down here and look at these four segments, I can see that
the lowest is this 183562648, and the highest is 216864687. The major difference then between these
two tables is by dividing this out, I can see who is matching who in which location. And that goes
for the whole, chrome, or the whole genome. All of the different segments that are matching between
them is divided it out. You'll notice in some cases, we have all three people represented on a
chromosome in another case. We only have two. And this is where one of the quirks are because of the
way that this matches. Everything you can see that there's always going to be at least two. There's
never going to be only one. And that's because it matches JY to BL, and then it also matches BL to
JY. So, it's the same segment. It's just matched in different way between which person you have
first which person you have second in order to get through all the different people. And so, that's
why when you think about this. If we had 10 people here, as opposed to three, we could easily have 10
or 20, or 30 different matching segments on one chromosome and all throughout the genome there.
But this is a nice quick way to be able to see which segments are matching and give you an idea
of whether or not they are triangulated. Because if you happen to find where they all match each
other over the same segment, that's going to be triangulation. So, there's a bit of triangulation
found in here. You have to look for it. There is also just the Segment Search that is found in here
that's another tool on the Tier 1 side that is in here, as well as the Multiple Kit Analysis looking
at some of the matrices analysis from this. So, in this one tool, the 3D Chromosome Browser so far
we have bits of multiple different tools that are represented. So, let's get then to the next part.
And this is really where it goes between what your preference is on how you like to look at the data.
I happen to like to look at data in a table format because I can see how some of these numbers fit
together and these segments overlap others. Other people actually like to have a more visual format,
and that is where we get this graphic here. Now, this is showing the same data that we
just saw on the table. The only difference is is it's showing it in a more graphical format.
So, right here, this represents the three people that we're looking at. You can see that they are
listed three across the top and three down the side, and it forms a little grid here.
And this is where those segments lie, and it's starting off on Chromosome Number 1. And remember
from that table, we didn't have any matching segments on Chromosome Number 1 our matches were
on Chromosome Number 2. When you click on this, it's going to put a drop-down menu. and it's going
to show all the different chromosomes. I know it's not showing up on the screen, right. Now,
but if it's in parentheses, like this one, that means there's no shared segments. If it's not in
parentheses, like chromosome 2, that I've just switched to. Then we're going to have little
bits colored for where people match. It's going to highlight here who's matching who. And so,
you can see we've got BL, JY, and JY, Drew D. We have to look at this, and we may need to rotate it
around somewhat to be able to see which is which. As you can see, right here, there's a couple of
white solid lines that almost are on top of each other and there's these couple of segments. So,
let's actually rotate this using these little bars at the top here to separate those out okay. So,
we've separated them out a little bit. And we can see that, hey,
this first one is JY on top and it intersects with BL. And along there, there is this segment
likewise there's Drew D over here. And it intersects with JY. And so, that segment
is represented. Now, the nice thing about this visualization of it is remember on the table
that I showed you before each matching segment always had two versions of it. For instance,
Drew D to JY and JY to Drew D. In this case, the visual representation is smart enough to actually
consolidate those into just one. And so, you don't see this Drew D down here matching up with this JY
because it already has Judy over here matching with JY.
So, that's one of the major advantages of looking at the graphic part of it is. We are only going to
have one segment represented for one matching segment, which is what you would want. Now,
while this tool does not show you in this view the start and the end location of the segments,
what it does is it tells you what centimorgans that segment is. So, for instance this green one
on the end here is between 10 and 20 centimorgans. Whereas this other blue one here is only between 5
and 10 centimorgans. If I go back to the table remember there's four. So, that represents two
segments because each two is one and I can see that yes I have one that is green 13 centimorgans
and one that is blue 8.2 centimorgans. And so, if you like using this graphic better than the table,
then you're going to be able to use this initially but you're going to have to go back to the table
to see where those segments start and endpoints are. But as you go through them, you'll also,
if there are overlaps, you can visually see where some of those overlaps are now in my three people
that I chose here. There are not any overlaps. I think this Chromosome Number 11 was the closest
one. Let me just rotate it some and you can see where all four of those segments. So,
they don't quite line up although this green one here it might line up right at the edge of it.
But that's one of the advantages of this is. You can actually look at the segments and how
they fit in multiple different ways as you rotate this around to be able to see where
things line up where a triangulation might be. So, the 3D Chromosome Browser on GEDmatch, again
it is different than your regular 2D Chromosome Browser that you're going to see from 23andMe,
MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA, or even the other 2D Chromosome Browsers on GEDmatch. It allows you to
look at multiple people against multiple people as opposed to one person against multiple people.
So, take a look at this tool. See if you can understand the results that are getting from
it and incorporate it into your genetic genealogy research. If you like learning
more about GEDmatch tools, then click on this video at the top. But if you
want to learn something else about DNA then try the video down below.