Abstract
Relatedness is a fundamental concept in genetics, but is surprisingly hard to define in a rigorous yet useful way.
Traditional relatedness coefficients specify expected genome sharing between individuals in pedigrees, but actual
genome sharing can differ considerably from these expected values, which in any case vary according to the pedigree
that happens to be available. Nowadays, we can measure genome sharing directly from genome-wide SNP data, but
there are many such measures in current use and we lack good criteria for choosing among them. Here, we review
SNP-based measures of relatedness and criteria for comparing them. We discuss how useful pedigree-based concepts
remain today, and highlight opportunities for further advances in quantitative genetics, with a focus on heritability
estimation and prediction.
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