Genetic genealogy books by level, from a first DNA test to written proof

For most family historians, the genetic genealogy book to start with is Blaine T. Bettinger's The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy^†, which explains the kinds of DNA test and how to read a list of matches. If you have not tested yet, a narrative such as A. J. Jacobs's It's All Relative gives the big picture without the science; once you are working on a real question, the National Genealogical Society's books with exercises and the casebook Advanced Genetic Genealogy are the next step. Below, the books are grouped by level, with a short note on each.

The books were chosen for clear writing, a good reputation among family historians and a fit with each level, and the notes are drawn from the publishers' descriptions and tables of contents.

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Where are you now?

Starting out

It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree

A. J. Jacobs, a journalist known for books built around personal projects, received an email from a stranger whose wife, the message said, was Jacobs's eighth cousin, and whose database already held more than 80,000 of his relatives. The book follows his three-year effort to build what he hoped would be the biggest family tree ever assembled, and on the way it covers crowdsourced world trees, DNA testing, famous relatives and the question of what makes someone family. There is no mathematics and the tone is light. It suits readers who want to know why genealogy draws people in before they learn how it works.

Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com

Nancy Hendrickson's guide, in its second edition, is a manual for one website. It works through search strategies step by step, describes each category of historical record the site holds, shows how to build a tree there and connect it with other users' trees, and adds a section on the company's DNA test with advice on reading results and using them in research. It is written for beginners and regular users alike. The obvious caveat applies: websites change faster than books, so some screens will look different, while the habits of careful searching carry over.

Also worth reading at this stage, as a plain citation: Libby Copeland's The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are (Abrams Press, 2020). Copeland, a journalist, follows adoptees who found birth parents, donor-conceived people who found many siblings, and people who learned that the man they took for their father was not their biological father. It is a fair warning, before you send off a sample, that results can rearrange a family.

Working with DNA matches

A match is someone who shares stretches of DNA with you, and the amount shared falls fast with distance. On average it roughly halves with each extra step in the relationship. Using the averages our cousin calculator works with, a full first cousin is related by r = 2 × (1/2)^4 = 1/8 and is expected to share about 875 centimorgans (cM); a second cousin, r = 2 × (1/2)^6 = 1/32, about 219 cM; a third cousin, r = 2 × (1/2)^8 = 1/128, about 55 cM. Those are expectations only. Real sharing scatters widely around them, so one amount of shared DNA can fit several different relationships, and that is why the books below spend whole chapters on interpreting matches rather than on reading a single number.

The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy

Blaine T. Bettinger, who also writes the blog The Genetic Genealogist, organized the first edition (2016) in three parts: getting started, choosing a test, and analyzing and applying results. The parts take in autosomal, Y-chromosome, mitochondrial and X-chromosome testing, ethnicity estimates, third-party tools and testing for adoptees. The second edition (2019) updates that ground, with diagrams of how DNA is inherited, guides to the major test types and companies, advice on cousin matches and on tools such as GEDmatch, and comparison charts and research forms. It is the one book in this guide that serves both a first-time tester and someone with years of matches.

Next to it on the desk, as a plain citation: Blaine T. Bettinger and Debbie Parker Wayne, Genetic Genealogy in Practice (National Genealogical Society, 2016). It is a workbook. Chapters cover basic genetics, standards and ethics, and the genealogical uses of each test type, then turn to planning a family study and writing DNA evidence into a conclusion. Each chapter ends with exercises built on real research problems, with answers, which makes it the natural follow-up for anyone who learns by doing.

Going deeper

The books at this level are for people with a specific question and the patience to document the answer. They appear here as plain citations.

Advanced Genetic Genealogy: Techniques and Case Studies, edited by Debbie Parker Wayne (Wayne Research, 2019), gathers fourteen chapters by professional genealogists, eight of them case studies of real families. Topics include triangulation, visual phasing, X-DNA, Y-DNA projects, adoption cases, endogamy and ethics, always with an eye to tying DNA results to documents. Contributors include Bettinger, Jim Bartlett, Ann Turner, Judy G. Russell, Debbie Kennett and Thomas W. Jones.

Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (National Genealogical Society, 2013), is a textbook on the genealogical proof standard: how to reach a conclusion about people you cannot see from sources that may be wrong, and how to write that conclusion up convincingly. It has exercises throughout. The society has since issued a second edition, which it describes as expanded on proof writing and on DNA evidence.

Kim TallBear, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), is an anthropologist's study of what is at stake when genetic ancestry is treated as proof of Indigenous identity, including for tribal claims to land, resources and sovereignty. Read it before treating any ancestry estimate as an answer to the question "who are my people?"

Alondra Nelson, The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome (Beacon Press, 2016), is a sociologist's account of how genetic ancestry testing has been used in the United States: to trace African roots, to support reconciliation projects and to argue claims for slavery reparations.

These last two matter for anyone interested in kinship as anthropologists study it. A DNA match shows shared descent; whether that person counts as family, and in what way, is settled by people, not by centimorgans.

A reading order

If you want one path through the list: Jacobs for the why, Bettinger for the how, Genetic Genealogy in Practice for practice with answers, then Advanced Genetic Genealogy and Mastering Genealogical Proof when you have a case worth proving. Add TallBear and Nelson at any point. Our book notes page has longer notes on the Jacobs, Hendrickson and Bettinger books, alongside wider reading on kinship, networks and cultural evolution.

Sources and further reading

• Bettinger, Blaine T. (2019). The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy, second edition. Family Tree Books. First edition 2016.
• Bettinger, Blaine T., and Debbie Parker Wayne (2016). Genetic Genealogy in Practice. National Genealogical Society.
• Copeland, Libby (2020). The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are. New York: Abrams Press.
• Hendrickson, Nancy (2018). Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com: How to Find Your Family History on the No. 1 Genealogy Website, second edition. Family Tree Books.
• Jacobs, A. J. (2017). It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree. New York: Simon & Schuster. Paperback 2018.
• Jones, Thomas W. (2013). Mastering Genealogical Proof. Arlington, VA: National Genealogical Society. Second edition: ngsgenealogy.org
• Nelson, Alondra (2016). The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. Boston: Beacon Press.
• TallBear, Kim (2013). Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Wayne, Debbie Parker, ed. (2019). Advanced Genetic Genealogy: Techniques and Case Studies. Wayne Research.