Testing everywhere was the right choice

 

DNAPainter chromosome map.

I'm now about two months into the process of chromosome mapping of segments, using DNA data from MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, Gedmatch and 23andme. I currently have about 28% of coverage, with 153 segments mapped to DNAPainter. This would not have been possible without the matches who only tested at 23andme.

About a year ago one of my research questions was to identify living descendants of my 5th-great-grandparents Jose Jesus Amado and Gertrudis Palomino. Two of those descendants tested at 23andme. While only one is still alive today, there's are hints of others in the same line, and if they're open to a YDNA kit from FamilyTreeDNA, this might provide some answers on the family's link to Portugal.

Chromosome 10.

Here's an example from my chromosome 10. The two rosé colored segments sandwiched above the yellow segment are both Amados. The yellow segment is Campuzano from a known descendant of Vicente Antonio Campuzano and Maria Concepcion Amado. The overlap is about 16 cM. The yellow is also overlapping with an orange segment from cousin Garry, showing this is a small inherited Campuzano piece.

Chromosome 18.

Another example on chromosome 18 shows an orange segment from a Campuzano tester on 23andme, with a long overlapping piece above two yellow segments who are known Campuzanos descended from my great-grandparents Plutarco Campuzano and Manuela Portillo. All of these testers only appear at 23andme. The tiny brown piece below the yellow is from a Portillo tester who is part of the Guerrero-Leyva group.

There is a cost to all the testing across platforms. I paid for 23andme+ Premium, which is (currently) $69 for a year. So far I've gotten the value and then some with the ability to see matches only available on that platform and see segment data. Many of the other features I haven't yet used, or don't work as well as tools on the other DNA platforms. 23andme's DNA clustering and chromosome comparison is solid and already enabling some discoveries. 

Plaza de España, 2019

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla, Spain. 27 Aug 2019.

A throwback shot to our family trip to Spain in 2019. I'm two weeks out from returning to Spain for meetings, once again going to Sevilla.

Mapping the DNA matches across platforms

Last Friday's post featured some simple family maps, built using free tools with Diagrams dot net (formerly Draw.io). This is similar to working in LucidChart, without Lucid's AI tools and no account is (currently) required to use it.

Family mapping in Diagrams.net.

What is helpful is that I can scroll across and build out the trees for both families, keeping the two families grouped above, and then "offscreen" on the left of the chart add DNA matches descending from the children of Vicente Antonio Campuzano. I can then color code those, and show centimorgans in common from the known testers at Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andme, or uploaded to Gedmatch.

This is a manual process for me, but I'm finding it useful to see where there are gaps, groups of closer matches, and then I can use the chart to try to make sense of segments in common from those testers not Ancestry (or who have also uploaded kits to FTDNA or Gedmatch).

Maybe there's a different way to do this, but so far this works. 

Looking for YDNA testers

I'm at a stage where additional testers would be helpful for this ongoing Campuzano DNA mystery. We need to have a few more testers descending from both the first family of Vicente Antonio Campuzano and the second. There is not currently a Campuzano DNA project at FTDNA, but I think there needs to be one.

If you're in the direct male path from one of the branches of the family, and you've stumbled onto this blog from a Google search, please reach out.

Spring in the marsh

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Ithaca, NY. 15 May 2026.