What family member is genetically closer to you?

Question

I hope this question makes sense. I know what I'm trying to ask but I'm not sure how to word it. If I had a grandchild, and a niece/nephew, which one would be genetically closer to myself? My kid's kid, or my sibling's kid?

Answer 1

In their book, "Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree" by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and Ann Turner, p. 120, the authors point out that a grandchild has 25% of your DNA; a niece or nephew would also have 25% of your DNA. If, however, you keep the same number of generations (a grandchild is 2 generations "removed"; a niece or nephew is one generation "removed") and use a great-niece/nephew, then it is 12.5% of your DNA.

Each generation "removed" cuts the percentage in half.

The only ones with greater than 50% of your DNA are yourself or an identical twin.

Answer 2

You are more closely related to your grandchildren, because you contributed to their DNA.

You did not contribute any DNA to your great/grand nieces and nephews.

But, genetically, your closest relatives are your siblings, if you share the same biological parents.  

Answer 3

It depends on whether you're a man or a woman and whether the kids/grandkids are boys or girls.

If you are a man, you pass your Y chromosome to your son and he passes it to his son. There's no other way for those genes to appear in your grandchild.

If you are a man and your child is a girl, you passed along one of her two X chromosomes and she passes one of those two to her child...but only DNA testing tells you if it was your gene or her mother's gene.

If you are a woman, there is no way of telling how much of your DNA is in your grandchild. That child has 4 genetic sets of DNA and only 25% of it is hypothetically yours. But I've seen test results come back for paternity tests where a child has 98% of the DNA of a parent. So there was more than 25% of her genes from each of her maternal grandparents.

With your sibling's child, it's a complete hypothetical. If your sibling is your identical twin, then you share more with your niece/nephew than you potentially do with your grandchild. But if you aren't an identical twin, only a good geneticist could untangle all of this.

Answer 4

Your Grandchild is directly descended from you, so therefore closer genetically.

Answer 5

Your grandchild would be closer to you than a nephew or niece.

Answer 6

If I understand your question, you would be genetically closer to your grandchild since branches out directly from you.  

Answer 7

Your kids kid, because your kid is 50% you and their kid is like 25% you.