Knowing that Ancestry’s leaner, meaner, better mousetrap is forthcoming shortly, I decided to take a final look at the old mousetrap at Ancestry and collect some information so that I can reliably compare said old mousetrap with the new and improved version.
On November 17, 2014, I had 262 pages of matches, at 50 matches per page, for approximately 13,100 matches. Clearly, I’m never going to contact all of those, or even most of those.
My matches break down as follows:
- 1 second cousin who doesn’t reply to messages. Their tree is visible, but I don’t see a common ancestor.
- 10 third cousins, of whom 2 are known cousins prior to DNA testing. Three others have no family tree. Other than my known cousins, I can only find one genealogy connection, thanks to a shakey leaf.
- 243 fourth cousins
- 12,846 distant cousins, few of which have any connecting genealogy information to me
Let’s take a look at how this breaks down.
My third cousin match (that I didn’t previously know) has a shakey leaf that shows the following common ancestors. You might notice that even though we are predicted as third cousins with a range of 3rd to 4th and a confidence rating of 98%, we are actually 5th cousins. That’s the nature of random DNA recombination in each generation.
That cousin and I match through Daniel Miller and Elizabeth Ulrich.
Actually, that’s not true – but it’s so easy to say and infer. In truth, we don’t know HOW we match, but we do have a DNA match and we do have a shared genealogy paper-trail ancestor in Daniel Miller and Elizabeth Ulrich. So, we MAY have a genetic match through these ancestors – or it might be through another line – known or unknown. But there is no way to tell for sure – at least not today at Ancestry.
Case in point…just very recently, when dealing with this exact same Miller line, I discovered that I did match one of my cousins at Family Tree DNA on the Miller line, but that we also have a second unknown genetic link on the X chromosome that could not have come from that Miller couple.
The problem with the matches at Ancestry is that they are suggestive and not in any way conclusive. Why? Because there is no chromosome browser or other tool to show that these people match on the same chromosomes. That would be step 1. A tool to see that those two people match another descendant on the same segment would be step two in truly identifying and confirming a common genetic ancestor. But neither of these steps exist at Ancestry today. Many people either don’t know or don’t understand that, or flat out don’t care – because they are meeting paper trail cousins.
If meeting paper trail cousins is your goal – then you can do a bang up job of that at Ancestry! In fact, I could meet 13,100 new cousins today. Just don’t assume that because you match them on DNA and on paper that the paper trail IS the genetic trail, because it might well not be. Never assume.
When looking at my Miller match’s tree, I notice that they have not only the incorrect, or at least unsubstantiated Rochette surname for Daniel’s mother, but they have also added another surname…out of thin air apparently – Maugens. Groan. Another incorrect tree – and this single ancestor is incorrect in two distinct ways.
I checked to see what sources they noted, and they gave the “Family Data Collection of Individual Records” as a source for every record. I’m sorry, but someone else’s hearsay isn’t a record source. However, I’ll leave source records to the experts and move on with genetic genealogy. However, word to the wise…. with Ancestry’s new and better mousetrap, accurate trees become exponentially more important.
Yes, I have seen a beta version mousetrap preview.
Today, I have 243 fourth cousins, 10 of which have shakey leaf hints, meaning that we do show a common paper-trail ancestor:
- Spklegirl- Francois LaFaille (also show Brown as a shared surname)
- Dbreeding63 – Fairwix Claxton and Agnes Muncy
- H.C. – Jacob Lentz and Frederica Moselman
- Alyssa- Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy – no response to messages (last logged in May 12, 2014 – not a good sign)
- Nanbowjack – private tree
- L.W. – private tree
- P.B. – private tree
- 1_cmarse – private tree
- MDgenealogy20 – private tree
- Susanharmon – private tree
Six of my 10 fourth cousin shakey leaf people have private trees, more than half.
Of the entire group of 254 matches of 2nd – 4th cousins, 44 have private trees.
Of those 254, another 52 don’t have trees uploaded. This is like cutting your nose off to spite your face. It’s easy to create an abbreviated tree, if nothing else, if you don’t want to upload your full tree from your genealogy software. That gives Ancestry’s software something to work with – a way to look for pedigree matches. No tree, no shakey leaf hints. Include at least 7 generations, if you have them.
So, of those 254 matches, I know that I’ll positively lose 96 due to private trees and no trees. Truthfully, I’m absolutely fine with that. Those matches are of absolutely no use to me. My efforts to communicate with Ancestry matches have been relatively unsuccessful, to the point that I’ve wondered if there is a glitch with my mail and their system – until a cousin sent me a test message to see if it was working. So, I’m glad to be rid of unproductive no tree matches that simply clutter up the works. I don’t want to see private tree teasers that I want and can’t have.
It will be interesting to see how many of my shakey leaves, if any, I’ll lose. Maybe I’ll acquire some new ones!!! I can always hope.
Shakey Leaves
Speaking of shakey leaves, by utilizing the shakey leaf hint filter ability, I can see only my shakey leaf hint matches, eliminating the rest. This is what I normally do, right after I see if I have any new close matches.
In my distant cousin matches, I have 36 additional shakey leaves, as follows, arranged by ancestor matches:
Ctkatherine – Fairwick Claxton and Agnes Muncy
Rodneybranch1 – James Lee Claxton and Sarah “Sary” Cook
Petwin73 – John Hill and Catherine Mitchell
Greatpyr616 – Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann
Marsha Bolton – Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann
Ctlynch01 – Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann
C.L.M. – Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann
Tjfhorn1 – Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann
Dblrich – Honore Lore and Marie Lafaille
Rkoelpin – Francois Lafaille
William Lowe94 – Joseph Preston Bolton (share 8 surnames plus Combs – Herrell family is the same)
E.J.H. – John Francis Vannoy and Susannah Anderson
Rheainhatton – Francis Vannoy and Catherine Anderson
Viero111777 – John Francis Vannoy and Susannah Anderson
Maggiejames113 – John Francis Vannoy and Susannah Anderson
J.M. – John Vanoy
RWECIII – Jotham Brown
Raymond Brown – Jotham Brown
Tgbils917 – Jotham Brown
Skyrider3277 – Jotham Brown
Browndavid239 – Jotham Brown
R.G. – John R. Estes and Nancy Ann Moore
Chuck2810 – John R. Estes and Nancy Ann Moore (multiple ancestral line in this tree)
Lodikid – Andrew McKee
C.A.W. – Daniel Miller and Elizabeth Ulrich
Ostate4454 – John Campbell and Jane “Jenny” Dobkins (wrong parents for John)
A.F.B. – Nicholas Speaks and Sarah Faires
Razzanozoo1 – Lois McNiel
M.S. – private tree
Christine414 – private tree
DDicksson – private tree
FruitofVine – private tree
Lisa36ang – private tree
J.M.F. – private tree
1_perry22 – private tree
Jcarolynbh – private tree
DNA Testing Goals
I realized this week when I received an e-mail from someone requesting assistance that goals and expectations surrounding DNA testing vary widely in the genetic genealogy community. This person said, “I thought when I took a DNA test that all of my brick walls would just melt away.”
Clearly, that’s not the case.
I think with the increasing popularity of DNA testing that a wider range of people take the tests, and often without really understanding DNA testing, the various kinds of tests, or what DNA results can or might do for them.
DNA testing is a toolkit, and which tool, under what circumstances, is best for the job varies based on your goals. It’s like picking the right sized socket wrench.
Let me be very specific about my personal goals.
I want to learn everything I can about my ancestors. I am not interested in inferring a genetic match when said match can be proven.
1. I want to know the haplogroup of every single ancestor in my tree – both male and female. Why? Because Y and mitochondrial DNA testing is the only direct line information I can obtain on those ancestors, and it stretches back far beyond any prayer of written records or surnames. It tells me their ethnicity and often, where they came from – sometimes in general terms and sometimes in much more specific terms.
2. I want to map my ancestor’s DNA on my chromosomes. In other words, I want to know that my DNA on chromosome 1, section 1-10,000 came from the Ferverda line on my mother’s side and from John Y. Estes and Rutha Dodson on my father’s side. This opens the door to do things like Ancestor Reconstruction as well as to identify where those other 12,846 people without shakey leaves fall on my tree, based on WHERE they match me.
While I am interested in meeting my cousins, especially cousins who are actively researching our common ancestral line, I’m not interested in meeting endless cousins who are just copy/pasting data from tree to tree. Rhetorically speaking, what the heck would I do with 13,000 new cousins. I can barely remember the names of the ones I have!
For me, the end goal is not meeting cousins, specifically, although I do enjoy many of the cousins I meet through genealogy. Some of my very closest friends are my genealogy cousins. But this isn’t a genealogy singles bar and I’m not interested in doing DNA speed dating, so to speak.
3. My goal is to discover every shred I can about my ancestors and to break down brick walls utilizing DNA. See number 2, above.
To match my cousins whom I already know is great confirmation that I’m really a family member, but it does little more except provide the foundation for chromosome mapping utilizing chromosome browser tools. I need tools to find those missing wives lines, and to add to the tree – maybe to discover who someone’s parents actually were. Those are the kinds of genetic genealogy dreams I have. That’s my idea of a better mousetrap.
Ancestry’s New Mousetrap
During our meeting in October and follow-up conference call, Ancestry indicated that their new processing methods would result in many fewer matches, but much higher quality matches, based on their new phasing routines and new features. I welcome both of those improvements.
I wrote about the Ancestry visit here. Judy Russell wrote about it here, and Blaine Bettinger wrote about it as well. Anna Swayne, who leads the effort in genetic genealogy education at Ancestry wrote about the upcoming DNA release and referenced information provided by Ken Chahine, the AncestryDNA general manager. So, now that you know what to expect, it will be interesting to see the real McCoy…er…I mean the new and better mousetrap.
The close and shakey leaf matches I’ve discussed above are the only ones I really care much about – because they are the only ones that are actually useful to me under the current circumstances. I would love to find a way to make the balance of my 12,846 matches useful. That would be an exceptional mousetrap.
It will be interesting to see how many of these shakey leaf matches I lose, what, as a consumer and Ancestry subscriber I will gain, and how the new mousetrap will help genealogists break down brick walls.
In the end, that’s really the measure of usefulness of any genetic genealogy mousetrap.
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It would be great if the 3 best companies would “talk” to each other and find a “common” ground of sharing information. If ancestry.com with all of the records in it’s database and FTDNA with its great chromosome tools would combine efforts, we would start up a great path of true knowledge. Maybe there needs to be a fourth company created to do just this. Anyone listening?
Be careful what you wish for. We don’t want Ancestry buying the other two up and ruining our whole DNA world!
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Here are my stats. 100% known ancestry in England and the Island of Jersey. Zero known ancestry in the USA.
18nov2014
7561 matches
7 4th cousins 95% confidence
226 5th-8th cousins moderate confidence
971 5th-8th cousins low confidence
6357 5th-8th cousins very low confidence
0 shaky leaves
“However, word to the wise…. with Ancestry’s new and better mousetrap, accurate trees become exponentially more important. Yes, I have seen a beta version mousetrap preview.”
Does this mean that the tree to which our DNA kit is attached will play a role in determining whether a match will be considered a match in the new mousetrap? And if so, as our trees evolve and expand with research breakthroughs, will other matches be reconsidered over time? I’m struggling with one branch at the great grandparent level, I’d hate to lose matches because I haven’t chiseled thru that wall yet.
We’re all under embargo right now with specific information about the new system and how it works. All I can say to you right now is don’t worry about the losing track of previous matches part of the equation, based on what I think I know:)
Oh good! Thanks!
The new system is up now. Looking forward to your new post about it. I stopped tracking total pages several months ago, but I had 216 with over 10,750 matches then. None closer than 4th cousin. Today, I am 52 pages, 2,561 matches, 7 match hints, and 106 4th cousins, 0 3rd cousin or closer matches.
“So, of those 254 [2nd to 4th cousin] matches, I know that I’ll positively lose 96 due to private trees and no trees.” Why do you say that?
I’m also curious as to what this means. I have two second cousin matches who are known to me. One has a private tree, the other no tree. Does this mean that with the “new mousetrap” they’ll no longer be on my match list, even though they’re valid matches, simply because they have private/no trees?
I am a private tree person. Why? Because i don’t want Ancestry using my info for profit and I want to know who i share my tree with. I agree that “no tree” is a really bad sign, but i think you should reach out to the private tree folks – or at least the close matches with private trees. We are not all useless. I have my tree available at ftdna and 23 and me – just not at ancestry. Ancestry is sort of in the business of providing a lot of bad trees, with good ones mixed in.
Sorry, my experience is that reaching out to private folks is not worth the effort. The onus should be on the private folks to contact the non-private folks and not the other way around.
I too, am a private tree person. My decision to do this is based on the fact that my mother is adopted. With the help on Ancestry (and DNA), I have been able to confirm the maternal side of her family. I know very little of her paternal side. In hopes of a “shaky leaf” hit, I play with and change her father’s (and his family’s) information – there are a lot of John Smith’s out there! Until I can confirm who her father is I do not want anyone picking this family up as fact. It is not my intent to be useless or annoying to others, I will happily share my information with others upon request.
If you are only using Ancestry DNA results, you may be going down some very wrong garden paths. It is necessary to triangulate any matches, and that means comparing chromosome strings on FTDNA and/or GedMAtch. You really need 3 matches to the same common ancestor to draw any conclusions.
What a fantastic posting Roberta! I’m very excited to see what Ancestry has coming up. I had to smile when I read about your difficulties with contacting matches and the mail system on Ancestry. I have had the same situation and I too wondered if there was a problem with their messaging system. Why bother taking a DNA test, posting a tree on Ancestry and the ignoring any queries that you get from genetic matches? Isn’t the whole point of being there to research your family tree and to connect with people who can help you with that effort? I don’t get why some members on Ancestry do that. Anyway, great post and I can’t wait to see these new developments.
I have a private tree too, p r paschke. If someone thinks they are related to me, they are more than welcome to contact me. I also am a private person and I prefer to only share my tree with people who I connect with, either by me sending them a message or one I received from them,
Just fyi, Quite often when someone has “no tree”, you can go to their “profile”page at ancestry, and they will have at least one tree you can link to. I think sometimes they have more than one tree and can’t decide which one to link their DNA to. Private trees are usually “dead ends” and rarely do I get a response from people I contact.
First great post. THANKS!
Second, I also ignore the private and no trees. I feel that a bare bones tree would in no way compromise their data, and I have had a hard time justifying spending my time writing an “ask them nicely note” which usually gets ignored. Especially the shaky leaf matches – they should be contacting me. I am not the one hiding my tree.
My concern is that the shaky leaves on steroids will be of no use in breaking down brick walls. I still won’t know Harriet Potter’s parents because we won’t match on our trees. I still won’t know Charlie Johnson’s Swedish name because Johansson or Jonsson aren’t anywhere on my tree.
If I can’t compare the strings with my already existing known-thru-triangulation ancestors, what use is it? I have several genetic cousins I match on a half dozen Colonial RI ancestors. It took triangulation to determine WHICH ancestor was on chromosome 7.
I have what could be a significant break through on my Anna Clough line. An Ancestry cousin match to a Clough living in the same county could be what I need, but I haven’t gotten a response to my begging for transfer to FTDNA or GedMatch. Since we also match on another ancestor line, I have no idea if this is a coincidence or a real clue. If I could see the chromosome string, I could see if it overlaps my other Clough genetic cousins with more distant ancestors. GRRRR
I will be glad to clear out some of the dead wood, but remain unconvinced that this will be of any real value.
Roberta, if I ever turn up as a match to your DNA sample, or one you manage, you can be sure I’ll answer your inquiry, even if I do have a Private tree. 🙂
I sent inquiries to all of my private trees today that I listed in my article. I only wish you were one of them:) Wouldn’t that be fun!!!
Maybe you could solve all my dead-ends! 🙂
I wish Ancestry would at least allow us to see common ancestors in private trees when there is a shaky leaf. I don’t see how this compromises anyone’s privacy and anyone’s wish to keep the rest of their tree secret. I haven’t had much luck lately getting responses from matches.
Secondly, I have really good shaky leaf clues but no way to triangulate without a chromosome browser or without begging my matching cousins to upload their file to Gedmatch or Family Tree DNA. I wish Ancestry would at least give us a chromosome browser as an option.
You’re lucky – I have no shaky leaf clues! I’ll keep checking though….
As of now, November 18, 2014, I have the following Ancestry.com matches:
2 2nd Cousins
14 3rd Cousins
320 4th Cousins
18,956 Distant Cousins
Only 20 leaves.
I’m one who has a private tree on Ancestry.com, but an open tree at FamilyTreeDNA. I’ve posted my results on Gedmatch.com, but haven’t posted any tree there yet. I have been contacted by several cousins and gladly share my Ancestry.com tree. I have tried to figure out how I am related to them, but have been unsuccessful so far. To me, testing without putting a tree up that is at least searchable, is wasteful and selfish. You paid for it. Get some use out of it. Let somebody else get some use out of it. I tested to break down the brick walls, to find family, and to discover my ethnicity. I know I delight in watching shows like “Finding Your Roots”, when Dr Gates tells his guest that jaw dropping fact about one of their ancestors. I’m sure most people who test do too. Help a cousin you haven’t met get that jaw dropping moment by at least posting a basic or searchable private tree.
What I want most out of Ancestry.com is a chromosome browser. I think an option to make my tree available to DNA matches, but allowing it to remain private to all others would be a another popular choice. Something like FamilyTreeDNA has for their surname projects. Another thing they could do, Ask the users what they want.
Like everyone else, I await the unveiling of the new and hopefully improved Ancestry.com DNA.
I got notification today of my new and improved ancestry.com. I don’t see anything earth shattering yet, looks pretty much the same.
Thank you for the heads up on this. On my own branch of our tree I have only one confirmed match. I had made contact with that person earlier this year but she only took the test a few months ago. So, when she showed up I knew who she was even though there was no shaky leaf, as she only had a few people in her tree at that time.
Since that time she has added a few more and it was just enough to lead to the man that was my great-grandfather and her grandfather. The match showed as likely 1st or 2nd cousin and in fact she was my 1st cousin once removed, as she was my dad’s first cousin. She doesn’t even remember him because he was 16 years older than she was.
On my husband’s side I am up to 40 shaky leaves. One is clearly not related to my husband on the shaky leaf side. It is merely a coincidence of the same name born about the same time.
The others are in fact connected on paper, although sometimes our trees don’t line up exactly. They sometimes are missing a generation and have someone listed as the child of people who are in fact their grandchild.
I have also come across some with no leaf that I can clearly see are related on paper to my husband, because I have worked quite a bit on his ancestor’s descendants. As his matches have not gone far enough up the ladder, they haven’t reached the common ancestor yet that I am fairly confident belongs to them too.
I realize that I could find many of his cousins without dna. In fact, I had already made contact with several people prior to his taking the test. Not all of them went on to get tested.
It is just an added tool. Often when you find your ancestors on someone else’s tree, they aren’t part of the direct line of home person in the tree. And the home person is not always the tree owner.
At least with those on the DNA match lists, we can know that if we contact those we believe we can see a paper trail to, that they are the ones who took the test.
If there are leaf matches on private trees I do contact them. Some let me see their tree, some just tell me what the connection is, and some never respond back. I figure it is their loss, not mine.
I am looking forward to anything that can help me sort out those without trees or with private trees.
Char
I am confused about what you are talking about, Ancestry.com or Family Finder? Or maybe I am just missing it at this time of hour. I enjoyed your trips around the world, which included our Estes ancestor, but would like more information on understanding the results. I seem to be doing well without the full sequence test, so why would I want to spend the money? Please explain the ACGT as it is nothing I understand. And I bet others as well. Thank you for listening, Nancy Preas Rhoads Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:22:34 +0000 To: nancyprhoads@hotmail.com
If you’re not utilizing autosomal testing, then this discussion isn’t relevant. You can see what you can do with autosomal testing by searching the blog for the word “autosomal.” Here’s an article about the basics. http://dna-explained.com/2012/08/19/autosomal-results-the-basics/
Regarding DNA matches and private trees, I’m sure many of them are worth contacting. Some respond quickly and are willing and eager to help.
The first week after I received my AncestryDNA results, I spent quite a bit of time messaging public and private tree owners, especially the private tree owners with whom I shared a leaf hint, figuring I’d pursue the low-hanging fruit first. I mainly targeted people in the 3rd-4th cousin range, too. Again, low-hanging fruit.
No one responded initially, public or private. After a few months, a few of the private tree owners responded, but most weren’t interested in working with me and I could tell a lot of them didn’t know much about DNA. The difference, though, is that I didn’t have to wait around for the non-responsive public tree owners. I could quickly go through at my leisure looking for the connection. When I found that connection, I messaged them. I was also able to go over to Gedmatch and infer who they were on my match list there based on the name or email. Most private tree owners didn’t respond to my email and so I still haven’t seen their trees.
So the point isn’t that private tree owners don’t make good matches, just that most aren’t worth the investment. From my perspective, how am I supposed to know who’s who? Where should I be putting my energy?
There are lots of good reasons to have a private tree, but ultimately if you want collaboration, especially for DNA purposes, ideally you’ll put as few obstacles in place as possible. Keep in mind that your matches are busy, too, and may not be able to work with you when you log back in and grant access to your tree. If you have a public tree, your match can do a lot of the work without having to contact you right away, so if you become inactive, lose your subscription, get hospitalized, etc., you still have your tree out there.
Also keep in mind that the private tree stops a lot of people from messaging because for every 20 messages that go out, only a small number of people actually reply. The response rate for private tree owners is probably the same as public, maybe better, but it’s still not a large number.
Perhaps it’s not a good strategy, but I’ve stopped contacting private tree owners. I let them contact me. Almost no one has. I concentrate on the public trees and do message them when I think I’ve found our common ancestry so that we can go over to Gedmatch.
I have both public and private trees at Ancestry. No one has ever messaged me regarding my AncestryDNA.
On Ancestry itself I usually do receive replies from those that I have messaged.
It would be nice if AncestryDNA would begin thinking in terms of making the most of DNA to uncover previously unknown ancestry — and to begin to taking steps to confirm deeper ancestry. I’m not as interested in finding 3rd cousins or making contact with paper trail connections. That can be fun, but anyone can do that without DNA testing. Let’s use DNA as a tool to do the things we can’t do with other tools.
So, I’m going to wake up on the morning of autosomalgeddon and find I have no matches at all, not even to my immediate family members? I currently have my tree Private. It seemed a good time to work on it since no new matches are coming across at this time. My plan was to make my tree Public again when the roll-out occurs. If this is Ancestry’s plan, then they have a public relations fiasco on their hands.
I am of primarily colonial American descent, a highly endogamous group with intricately entangled kinships. I have matches who are double, triple and even quadruple cousins. I have numerous male ancestors who had children with more than one wife in succession, with the result that I have numerous half cousins. I have over 800 leaf hint matches, with the absolute worst howler of a gaff being with a known double third cousin match who shares descent from two entirely separate couples, with four distinctly different surnames, with me…the leaf hint has paired the husband of ancestor couple A with the wife of ancestor couple B as the leaf hint match…so Ancestry’s into perpetrating wife-swapping on our ancestors with the leaf hint system? My ancestors must be turning over in their graves at this travesty.
I won’t even go into Ancestry’s refusal to provide dna segment data…thank goodness for 23andMe, FTDNA and GEDmatch…and triangulation tools.
Autosomalgeddon….thank goodness I still have a viewable match list left and far less reduced than I expected…went from 395 pages to 110 pages. Private tree status only affects “DNA Circles”…if you have a private tree, you get no one in “DNA Circles”. I made my tree public. Ancestry is supposed to update the “Crop Circles”…oops…”DNA Circles” every 3 to 4 hours.
Autosomalgeddon is here!
Autosomal-Geddon has BEGUN
My matches dropped from 261 pages to 59. 13000 matches to 3000 (almost exactly)
A little warning would have been nice.
DNA Circles has begun, whatever that is. But no tools, certainly not a browser.
Percentages have been dropped. Replaced by Extremely High, Very High. No explanation as to what that exactly means.
I had starred about 4-5 pages of presumed matches. I now have 2-3 so I guess the majority of my stars were correct but I am sad to see a few go to the wayside.
Fortunately I did save some of the old information earlier using a Chrome app called DNAHelper.
Hmmm….its not flawless.
I have one match that is now considered Very High. (I dont remember previous designation)
Official explanation:
Approximate amount of sharing: 20-30 centiMorgans
Likelihood you and your match share a single recent common ancestor (within 5 or 6 generations): 99%
The problem is that I recruited that person to GedMatch and she shows up as 0 cM. No match at all. But AncestryDNA is saying 20-30. So unless GedMatch is very wrong……
By using trees we have identified our common ancestor, but I just assumed that because it was in the 5th cousin range, that we shared little or no DNA.
by the way, Moderate is now the LOWEST ranking.
I highly doubt it’s GEDmatch that’s wrong… but I think you already know that.
I don’t usually contact matches with private trees, as I have no way of knowing whether it would be worth my while. However, I really appreciate it when they take the initiative to contact me, and always reply as helpfully as I can. I hope they won’t feel so rejected now that they stop communicating! 🙂
Checked out the latest DNA on Ancestry. I lost quite a few folks which is just as well since many had no trees online or their trees were private. I do hope all the “false” positives were gotten rid of. For now, many of my closest matches have no trees on Ancestry. And, those with “private” trees rarely return messages. Hopefully in the future, those with no trees will eventually put a tree online for comparison.
# of Pages of matches 214 -> 18
Number of matches 10,600 -> 884
# of Hints 0 -> 0
3rd-4th cousin matches 1 -> 1
4th-6th cousin matches 14 -> 9
* 3 unchanged
* 6 that moved up from 5th-8th
* 11 that dropped to 5th-8th, including my previous #3, #4, and #5
* Biggest move down – #5 (4th-6th, 96%) dropped to #684 (5th-8th, Moderate)
* Biggest move up – #2311 (5th-8th, Very Low) to #10 (4th-6th Very High)
Is there a way to download a list of v2 matches like the file you can download for v1 matches?
Being African American this puts me at a loss,a great loss. The matches that I had before connected me with my European side,supplied with paper trails it also helped fill in the gaps. I’m not liking this new change at all. Fortunately I still have access to the matches that I had before,by downloading the file in settings. (only for a limited time though)
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How about this AncestryDNA?
I WILL pay the subscription fee to see my matches in a chromosome browser.
I will NOT pay a subscription for these half-measure stupid circles.
Got it?
Roberta, thanks for filling in the gaps and expectations about DNA. Looking forward to learning more and finding information that will help over my brick walls.
bfhodgkin@gmail.com
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