This article is very quick and dirty because it’s all that I can do at the moment and you need to have this information NOW! Please read the entire article because you’ll find instructions at the end. Yes, I know this is very short warning, but please do not shoot the messenger. I started typing the minute tonight’s conference call was over, literally.
Ancestry was kind enough to hold a second conference call about their upcoming changes this evening with the bloggers group. The first call during Rootstech let us know changes were coming. Tonight we received more details.
This is not the end of the world and not a repeat of Autosomalgeddon that occurred when people lost 80-90% of their matches when Timber was introduced.
Let’s get the bad news over with so we can move on.
The Bad News
- You will lose some matches.
- Ancestry indicated that no one lost anyone 2nd cousin or closer.
- The change is imminent – meaning if you’re not doing something tonight and tomorrow, get busy on the “To Do” list at the end of this article.
- You may lose Circles or NADs due to disappearing matches. The average loss was 1 circle and NADs were similar, although they did not provide a number.
- Today you can see matches to matches up through the 4th cousin level. At the 5-8th cousin level, you cannot see matches to matches. The category most dramatically affected was the 4th cousins shifting to the 5th-8th cousin category, WHICH MEANS YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR COMMON MATCHES WITH THOSE PEOPLE.
The Good News
- You will have new matches.
- Most people will have a net gain in matches and the example we saw was significant.
- Ancestry will allow you to download previous match information on matches that have disappeared but ONLY IF YOU STAR THEM OR MAKE A NOTE ON THE MATCH. This was not originally in the plans and we want to thank Ancestry for adding this after the Rootstech call.
- There will be two new papers, one white paper on Ancestry’s new methodology and technology, and one on matching.
- Ancestry will review feedback after the rollout so if you have something to say, it won’t be effective on Facebook or to your friends. The only place it stands any chance of being effective is if you submit your feedback to Ancestry directly. And I’m betting civil feedback carries more weight than nasty feedback – no matter how you feel. That old sugar catches more flies than vinegar thing.
The Interesting News
- Most of the changes people will see are in the relationship estimates of more distant cousins, meaning 4th cousins or more distant.
- Most of the lost matches will be in the most distant, 5th-8th cousin category.
- Most of the gained matches will also be in the 5th-8th cousin category.
Your Immediate To Do List
- Star or note every DNA/Tree match, meaning those with leaf hints.
- Screen shot every Circle and NAD if you care about NADs, and record who is in the Circle or NAD.
- Record all of your matches with matches information for 4th cousins or closer. I would begin with 4th cousins because those are the most likely to disappear. Those with tree hints are the most valuable to you, so I would start with those.
- DO THIS NOW!! We can’t provide you with any release dates because Ancestry will launch when they are ready, and they don’t exactly know what day that will be. So, if you do this today, the worst thing that will happen is that you’ll have all your data. If you wait, the worst thing that will happen is that you’ll lose valuable information.
Oh, and did I mention time is of the essence????
Get busy everyone. If you wait, you’ll be sorry.
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Roberta, Thank you for letting us be aware of this. I am not sure if I am merged with Ancestry or not. I tested through Relative Genetics, which I submitted to WorldFamilies and they helped me convert it to FTDNA. How do I find out if I am listed in their database. At present I do not have a subscription with ancestry? Thank you.
This is only for people who have taken their new autosomal test so it does not affect you.
How abt my husband, David E Wallace, D.W.?
I’m confused. Does this only apply to the newer tests? Not tests that were done a few years ago? Please advise. Thanks. 🙂
It applies to all autosomal tests.
I just finished 5+ hours of covering myself for a worst case scenario.
It is great to have friends in High Places!. Thank you, Roberta for your alert.
Another option to screen shots and much faster in my opinion: Save As Complete Web Page. I’m pretty sure all browsers have this option and you can then view the saved page offlline. It saves the page pretty much exactly like you see it, with no need to scroll and make multiple screen shots of long pages. Just did this for 5 kits worth of NADs and DNA Circles including all the people in each circle.
Thanks!! Wow!! So easy. Go to “AncestryDNA Results for XXXXX” at the top of your dna match list. Right click, then in the pop up box, Click “add to favorites”. That is all you do. Now when you want to access your match list, go to your Favorites button (a star on my computer), click, and now you have your match list.
I have a Windows 10, so do not know how it would translate to other OSs.
caith, will that take you to the bookmark right; but it won’t save the exact matches that are there today, but take you to the current matches, right?
For Stacy, do you have to do that on each page then? I wish there was a way to do all of the pages in the results.
Jen – Mea Maxima Culpa. Upon reflection and your inquiry, I realize I was not “saving a file”; but rather achieved only quick access to the site, AncestryDNA, in its current status because I had to log-in. I apologize for my mistake. Obviously, I am a tech dinosaur.
Thanks caith, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing something, too!
For Windows users, a screen capture tool that hasn’t been mentioned here is the “Snipping Tool” in the “Windows Accessories” category of the Start Menu’s “All Apps” category. It lets you select a rectangular region from your screen and save that as a picture file.
If the lost and gained are each in the 5th-8th cousin category, is this to say they are taking away the lower cMs matches, and then giving us higher cMs matches in the 5th-8th cousin category?
I have actually had many tree matches with only 5cMs shared with my matches.
The thresholds between categories are changing and the lowest threshold is being raised as well. Between those two things and the match routine changed you’ll see losses, gains and shifts. Hopefully more accuracy.
Thank you for the alert! How exciting!
Here is an FYI for those with the Snavely tool on their Chrome browser. Download your matches and ancestors of matches from the splash page of the DNA website on Ancestry. You’ll probably want to do other things also but that will give you a lot of information.
When will the update take place?
Ancestry didn’t say exactly but shortly. Perhaps very shortly.
OK, assuming we’ve saved what we can before the change. We stand to lose some, and gain some and in the long run, we probably will break even. Is Ancestry going to give us tools to work with our data, like FamilyTreeDNA and gedmatch do?
Not that I know of.
Another possible step would be to use the Dnagedcom client to download your matches ASAP
Good point, Bill. I’m doing that now, pulling my dad’s matches.
Exactly!
Understand that NADs, new ancestry discoveries, are more often NOT your ancestors. One of mine is obviously a case of distant in-laws; a second appears to be in-laws. In these two cases the software picked the wrong branch at the top of the tree. It appears the software appears uses a very simple, brain-dead approach. If you match several people who have a known common ancestor, bingo, that common ancestor shows up as your NAD, even though the ancestor won’t be in your pedigree usually. (In the same way that your first cousins from an aunt will share 2 grandparents who are not your grandparents.) The software for NADs doesn’t bother to check for such simple explanations, not that would be possible often with so many incomplete trees. With that in mind, NADs can turn up interesting, distant connections. NADs are ancestRY clues, not quite ancestOR discoveries, usually. They should be promoted that way.
The new ancestry discoveries would be better named nuisance ancestry details. For instance my first cousin has a married couple in the possible ancestries but when I look at those matches they also pop up as my matches, but I don’t get the match in new ancestry discoveries. In another case I have a seventh generation great-grandmother who has the same name as his cluster of six new ancestry discoveries in areas my ancestors haven’t been for 300 years?
It should prove interesting because I have a lot of people were listed as distance ancestors that I have hints for but those hints do go back sometimes as far as seven generations. I am particularly interested in what’s going to happen with my wife who has no less than 750 hints most of which are fourth-generation. Her ancestors come from Kentucky)
I also find Gedmatch a valuable tool particularly sense with the exception of my maternal grandmother who is from Ireland my family has been here literally sense the colonies were founded and I’m finding more and more people who are descended from both sides of my family sometimes making it confusing.
Question (as I am starring everyone on my many pages (I hope to finish one day lol), wondering: Why, if I have so many matches (and many of those do have shared ancestors that show up in the tab) why don’t I have a single DNA circle? What would cause that?
There are specific rules for the formation of DNA circles. You can call support and ask or check their white papers. I have had some that were confusing too.
Thank you; after I have these current matches saved, I will give them a call
I didn’t even know what a DNA circle was. Do I have to have my Ancestry tree public in order to get circles? I have 46 pages of 100 matches. Most of these are 5th-8th “cousins” but some have leaves for common matches. I’m new to this. I have gotten messages from matches, so they must be finding me. Thank you
I don’t think your tree has to be public for circles. The reason you’re hearing from people is that you can see is you have a tree match to them but they can’t see who your common ancestor is because your tree is private. So while you can see, they have to ask you.
This a pain… A month or so ago they trotted out. a trial balloon with new ethnicity results that made absolutely no sense. I gave them an earful on that one. I noticed a few days later the preview was gone never to be seen again. What are they up to?
We saw the ethnicity tests too and they are further refining that code before release.
I am out of town until April 28th. I am unable to look at my DNA project for at least a week. There should be some notice given for this change. Many people paid lots of money to have their DNA tested only to have this happen now. How about giving some notice !!!!!!!!!
So you’re telling us in an very polite and informational way that the people who submitted their own DNA and paid for the information about the results of the test don’t own the information gathered on their own DNA and the information they gathered about it, even though they are the ones who paid for the results of said DNA.
Sounds to me like a good reason for a lawsuit to me.
Vicki L.
They are improving the accuracy of the results. I would much rather see more accurate results than to hold on to a bunch of matches that are inaccurate.
I agree. Why would I want to tag matches that aren’t accurate?
My DNA circles change constantly anyway. I assume as new info comes in.
And, according to GEDMATCH my parents are distant cousins (which I confirmed on my tree) so I have many matches with matches who match on both sides.
Just want to give my support to Ancestry, because the DNA info has exceeded my expectations!
Actually, you DO own your DNA raw data. You can download it and do with it whatever you wish. But Ancestry owns the process whereby they compare your results to the results of others, interpret the data, and present the interpreted results in their own proprietary format.
Ancestry owns it all and plans to make money of it with any chance you give them.You are paying to do your research and
Ancestry ends up owning it /DNA /uploads/photos/searches. ect.
You are paying to work for them .
Would you anticipate that the “Shared DNA” numbers are going to change, or just the cousin-ship estimate thresholds based on those numbers? (In other words, will my “650 shared cM” with my suspected half-aunt stay the same while our cousin prediction maybe drops from first to second, or am I more likely to see the shared cM number go up, and have the estimated relationship stay the same?)
Based on the changes in the code I expect the shared amount to change which in combination with changed thresholds will precipitate the shift.
To Bill Breidenbach – I just signed up for DNAGedcom but didn’t see an obvious way to do what you suggest can you give the path from the Home page?
See this page: https://dnagedcom.com/docs/What_can_you_do_on_DNAGedcom.pdf
You might also download to Gedmatch.
Besides the what can you do on DNAGedcom, you can go here for the links to the apps.
http://www.dnagedcom.com/doc/welcome-to-the-dnagedcomclient/
Be sure to register from the main site (not from the page above) and after registering and logging in, go under members and choose subscribe to get setup.
The subscription helps to support the rest of the web site, which most of it is free.
I was never able to get Ancestry data just to dnagedcom.com. I had to use the dnagedcom.com CLIENT tool (downloaded to my PC, after I paid a subscription fee — $5/month, $50/year). Using that tool gives me my match list, and my list of shared matches. https://www.dnagedcom.com/doc/welcome-to-the-dnagedcom-client/ For each kit I administer, I logon as that relative and download the data.
–Cathy
I did a blog post sharing my experiences of downloading my AncestryDNA matches from DNAGedcom:
http://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/changes-to-ancestrydna-matching.html
It all ran very smoothly, and it was an interesting exercise collating all the information on shared cMs and shared segments in one document. The download also picks up the shared ancestor hints if you have any (I only have one at the moment).
This maybe a simple problem. Following “to do ” list, I starred the cousins within 4th cousin range/screenshot page before leaving. Today when I checked all the stars I indicated were unstarred. I’m I missing a step. I looked for a update or save option. Do I have to logout.for it to save.
I never have had that problem but others have reported it today.
That happened on a few of mine, but it appeared to save them and bring in new ones, so perhaps it worked, but unstarred anyone that was there. Hard to tell, but I know I starred all of my second cousins the first pass, and it happened in that category.
I just sent in my DNA sample and got the email it was received. How will my matches look different from others who have previously taken the test? Will I not get as many matches as others before me. I was hoping to see a match from a 5th cousin that took the test last year.
They may be slightly different matches that you would have gotten had you tested previously, but there should be more.
Rashida, I would recommend that you and your 5th cousin upload your raw data files to GEDmatch.com. It’s a free site and you’ll be able to compare and analyze your results there, even if you don’t have a match to each other at AncestryDNA.
I absolutely agree.
Roberta,
Do you have any sense of how this may affect those of us from endogamous populations, such as Jewish ancestry?
Thanks,
I wondered that too. No, I don’t know.
Thanks – I am sure that would impact you as well since part of your ancestry is endogamous. Guess you can see when it happens and let us know!
I can’t get to the DNA page at all. Guess we are all overloading it. I wasn’t done saving……:-(
I can’t figure out this save to pdf process; and I guess I hoped it was a one shot thing, but you have to do it for every page, right? Is there anything that is to get all the search results list at once?
I’ve been doing a simple copy/paste into a Word document. In my case, (Mac OSX) and Word for Mac 2011, the links are staying active. In other words, from the Word document I can click on the names with a link (font is blue to indicate a link) and it goes right to Ancestry. It may be something to try. I hope the links stay the same. But I will at least have a visual record.
OHHH, all of the pages of matches I have added “Star” to; I am back on my list at the beginning, and none are starred! 🙁
Same here. I spent a couple of hours last night starring matches on the three accounts that I administer, and just now I checked and the new stars are gone. Guess that was wasted time! I can only hope they’ll come back, because I’m not going through the process again.
Once again you pay for a service then you lose stuff. Dish and my internet did the same thing. Even the bank changes things but you still pay.
There doesn’t any earth shattering changes with mine. I still have the same top cousins, DNA circles,and the same NAD.
I’ve lost all my DNA circle. It claims I have 2 pages, but none appear. I guess it could be a browser issue.
There appears to be a change in the communication. I had previously sent messages to some of my matches, only to find today that now I have to be a member to send a message to one of the matches.
As a member,I have sent out many messages recently, and no response. Is this to say the recipient also has to be a member to respond to messages. Anyone know?
I believe you must be a member.
Stan, I let my membership lapse for about 6 months as I wanted to wait until Ancestry had gotten new record collections. During that time I didn’t have an active, paid membership, I could not send messages through the messaging system. However, if someone messaged me, I could respond to their message. On the Ancestry Support pages, there is a page entitled “What happens to my tree after I cancel my subscription?” It says this: “You will not be able to send messages to other members through the Ancestry messaging service. You will be able to respond to any messages sent to you, but you will not be able to initiate a new message.”
I really don’t understand why Ancestry would want to take away from their product instead of improving on it.
This may be slightly off the subject but it became noticeable as I was going through my circles today. I have a very close relative who is not properly set in his tree and so what should be his relatives through marriage are showing up as circle matches. He is in 4 circles to people he isn’t even related to. I also found a sister of one of my dna matches show up in a circle even though she isn’t on my list Ancestry dna matches. So what I am getting out of all of this is that Ancestry has no link between their dna and their circles.
I have that issue too. I’m in 43 DNA circles. Forty of them are direct ancestors, one is a first cousin 3 times removed, and the other two aren’t related to me by blood, but by marriage. One is the wife of the first cousin 3 times removed that I mentioned and one is the husband of a second cousin twice removed.
I know only what I’ve read here about the upcoming changes at AncestryDNA, but it sounds to me like the intent of the changes IS to improve the overall product, not to inconvenience anyone. I agree it is unnerving to know that some matches may be lost but I’m trusting that the changes will ultimately result in more positives than negatives.
That is certainly the intention, but losing matched is very concerning for a lot of people, especially those who lost 80 or 90% before. The ideal situation would have been to preserve current matches and then use the new threshold on new matches. At least we do have this opportunity to preserve them ourselves. It’s too bad purged matches couldn’t just be put in a file for us so we don’t have to do all of this.
I’ve got a couple of doozies as far as the “related by marriage” Circles are concerned. One is an “uncle of wife of 4th cousin 3x removed”, another is the “2nd great-grandfather of wife of 6th cousin”. But… I have DNA matches with other Ancestry users in the circles who have these guys as their direct ancestors, so I should be related to each Circle main person by blood in some manner, shouldn’t I?
I’m not so sure, Anita. Here’s a doozy DNA circle that my brother has. I manage his test at Ancestry. He is in DNA circles for Thomas Shifflet, b. 1765, and Thomas’ wife, Elizabeth Lamb, b. 1768. Thomas is described as my brother’s “maternal grandfather of wife of 1st cousin 5x removed”. My eyes rolled back in my head when I first read that. 🙂 The 1st cousin 5x removed was Jonathan Green Kidwell, b. 1823. My brother has DNA matches to 7 of the 35 members in the Thomas Shifflet DNA circle, even though my brother’s relationship to Thomas Shifflet is only by marriage. I started reviewing the matches my brother has to those 7 members and found a tie into my brother’s and my Kidwell line. So the DNA my brother shares with these 7 members of the Thomas Shifflet DNA circle has nothing to do with the Shifflet line. Looks like if you have ancestors who had two or more in the family marry ancestors from another family, this type of situation where you are assigned to a DNA circle with no blood connection can happen.That’s what happened here. Thomas Shiflett had a daughter, Eliza, whose daughter, Mary Jane Foote, married Jonathan Green Kidwell. Thomas Shiflett had a daughter, Matilda, whose daughter, Elizabeth Jane Coyle, married Harrison Kidwell, brother of Jonathan Green Kidwell. The Kidwell brothers were the grandsons of Jonathan and Rebecca Kidwell, my 5x great grandparents. Five of the seven matches in the Thomas Shifflet DNA circle are descendants of either Jonathan Green or Harrison Kidwell. I haven’t figured out yet how my brother is connected to the other two members of the circle that he matches, but I do know that in looking at the “shared matches” tab on both of those matches, there are others who tie in to my Kidwell line.
Why would you lose everything? This should all have been backed up. They’re should not be any losses from your end. The primary reason most people enter their information is to guarantee the dependability if it being there whenever they want it.
Mine is Iapetus back up and that is the way it shall remain.
No one will lose everything. People will likely lose some matches below the new thresholds when recalculated.
I am starting things like mad. Thanks fir the warning
I’m not sure what you mean when you say record all your matches. I’ve tried copying and pasting into word where I get the info I see on my DNA matches pages. The links also work from the Word. document. Any thoughts? Thanks so much for this info. What I starred in the last two day are still there.
I use a spreadsheet and record the match name, common ancestor, matches to matches and anything else relevant.
Does anyone happen to know if AncestryDNA has any plans to accept transfers from other companies at some point in the future?
They have not expressed an interest in that topic during discussions, but things can change.
Thank you, Roberta for your reply. It would be nice if they did one day. I manage a deceased relative’s kit at FTDNA. I believe that this relative’s half-sibling has been tested at AncestryDNA, but the person who managed the Ancestry account has also passed away, so having them transfer to gedmatch.com or FTDNA isn’t an option.
This did not work for me. I downloaded to Excel as advised. Half of my 2nd and 3rd cousins and even two 1st cousins did not download. The all were starred and had notes attached.
You may have to do some by hand.
So, how do I do that on individual downloads?
I’m assuming you’re using one of the tools. You’d go in and check manually and add missing data. Or try to download again.
My v1 DNA match download was thoroughly messed up as well. None of my close family or 2nd and 3rd cousins were downloaded. It seems to me that the list is from some time ago, possibly months past, since dozens of 4th cousins are missing and a few matches that have changed their user names are still listed with the old name.
The download certainly does not reflect the wasted hours of time that I spent last Monday starring all my cousins after I read this alert. Oh, and I also starred my daughter’s and grandson’s. I clicked thousands of times on the 4th-6th cousins, 456 of them for me and a large number of 5th-8th as well.
Yet when I did the download, very few matches are indicated as starred or with notes in the spreadsheet. I’d made notes for each and every cousin that I could determine on which side of my family we are related, and also indicated shared matches on the ones that I couldn’t be sure what our connection is. The spreadsheet has a total of 250 cousins through the 4th-6th category, not 456. That’s over 200 missing cousins.
As well, I have the exact same number of “4th cousins or closer” as I had early last week, and no new shared ancestor hints for at least 10 days. If the “big change” has happened, it hasn’t brought me anything useful so far as I can tell. Something seems to be very wrong here, or am I misinterpreting the reason for the v1 DNA download? Do we know that Ancestry has “done the deed” already?
Sigh.
I’m laughing out loud, very loud! Ancestry now has a window come up about a big sale on Ancestry DNA when you go to their page! I wish I could post the screen shot!
Well since last night my relative I’m helping- her DNA Circles disappeared. I’m so glad I screenshot them yesterday. To be honest I was VERY surprised. Her paper trail is extremely old school genealogy. She just had NAD’s listed. Under TOOLS, there is an option to download.DNA v matches (?) FOR A LIMITED TIME. I was able download as a csv file. Also, on a few matches, I tried to “star” on initial match page. Maybe the Distant, less p matching. I found if opened match, then I could star, note, save, screenshot person,s tree. One last thing Abt the circles. Last night, with her close matches/common matches- it also listed what DNA circle she was currently IN. Today checked same Match/close match. Nothing. Like an Unlisted phone number. Just gone.
I believe the DNA vs matches file was ft in the last time they made a significant change. I wish they had fond they this time.
Can you tell me where the “Tools” button is, where I might be able to find the download for matches? Thanks!
Nothing has changed on my account yet but I haven’t received any new matches for a couple of days now. I assume this is the same for everyone and it is leading up to the update.
I don’t think so unless they put a message on the accounts when it happens.
Well, I went from 39 DNA circles to 9. Nine. 🙂 14 NAD from 39.
I don’t know whether this is an improvement on the dna information or not. I suppose we will find out when they are finished with this process, but I really believe they should be adding more shared matches as it is a somewhat helpful tool without the ability to compare dna. I sent that particular suggestion to Ancestry a couple of months ago. I have a difficult time with my relatives from Ireland and other portions of my tree and it could be helpful to be able to look at shared matches for information from their trees.
I just saw this! When does it take effect?
Can I save any of the info. about to be deleted if I do not have a paid Ancestry.com account?
You can save anything you can see, but I don’t think those without a paid account can see things like their matches trees, so you may be limited to begin with.
After not seeing any activity on my account since the 13th, I don’t know what to think. I hope Roberta’s April fools prediction of a new chromosome browser meant as a prank becomes reality and that Timber gets pruned into a more useful tool. While I’m wishing, why doesn’t Ancestry.com have a way for user validation of their relationship predictions like FamilyTreeDNA.com. One could look at Ancestry’s predicted relationship of 4th cousin, recognize that it is actually a 2nd cousin, 2x removed and in the drop down menu send a request for the match to confirm. Ancestry is great at marketing and has in my opinion the best searchable database of the three testing companies. A few positive tweeks is all I’m wishing for. Until the changes finally arrive, I’m going to be an optimist and hope for the best.
I went through and Starred my 6 matches that show a common ancestor, and the one other match that is someone I know. I will say bye-bye (hopefully) to the 92 pages of other so-called marches that I have no clue what to do with. I have looked through a few that have public trees and did not see anyone that makes sense to me. If the matches on those 92 pages showed a common ancestor or showed some other way of telling me who they are and how we are related, I would pay more attention to them.
On a side note, can anyone tell me what normal turnaround time is at FTDNA? I sent a test to them about 6 or 7 weeks ago.
I was working through my DNA lists this morning when suddenly the pages stopped loading. I wonder if the change is taking place right now? Anyone else having trouble getting DNA matches to load?
There have been problems reported with the web site for a couple weeks now.
Here’s some additional information that explains the matching improvement and phasing improvement that is expected with the changes, for anyone who would like more information. http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2016/04/19/ancestrydna-plans-update-to-matching-algorithm/
I still have not seen any changes with my matches or the matches to my brother’s test, which I manage, or 4 cousins’ matches to which I have view access. None of us have had any new matches in the past week, which makes sense in view of the upcoming changes.
This article says AncestryDNA will now be used a SNP-based method to compare people. As a result, it is expected that many matching segments will increase in size and that the total shared cMs with many, and possibly most, matches will increase. I’m wondering if this means the total cMs shared with a match will be more in line with the total cMs shown for that same match at GEDmatch. Right now, AncestryDNA shows a much lower number than GEDmatch does.
The difference is because ancestry strips segments away using their Timber and phasing algorithm. Yhat isn’t changing.
I just logged on to Ancestry to see if the changes had gone through. Previously I had 2 bad NADs. Now I have 4!
I don’t even know what to say…..
I just checked my account. I lost a bad NAD, circles are the same and so are the matches so it doesn’t look like the transition has happened yet.
What is a NAD? Thank you.
New Ancestor Discovery. Put NAD is the blog search box. There are several articles.
Mine are pretty much identical to what it was. No losses no gains not one.
Any word on when this update will be completed? I would be grateful for any current information as I haven’t gotten any new matches in two weeks. This update has also delayed the release of results for my mother, my daughter and a second cousin of mine.
Thanks in advance for any info.
It wasn’t done last night when I checked. Beyond that no word.
They give everyone the same response on the facebook page – “While we complete the update for all existing customers, we will not be posting new results for this brief period of time. We appreciate your patience as we work to make these updates for all our AncestryDNA customers. ” The brief period of time is becoming a long period of time lol
Still no changes to my matches as of today. Boy, they sure know how to make us all anxious. 🙂
No new DNA matches to any of my 4 accounts in nearly 2 weeks. Everything else seems to be doing okay.
Including today, it’s been 18 days without a new match. When activating two kits recently, I noticed a statement that said do to high demand, results may take longer than the normal 6 to 8 weeks. This is the only official communication I’ve seen from Ancestry.com about any delays. Has something unexpected gone wrong? Why no official “Please be patient while we improve your user experience.” email?
There has been no official statement but I know they are fine tuning some things.
Whatever happened to limited user beta testing?
They did some on the ethnicity portion but I don’t think this is something they can do partially.
I’m not quite sure what is going on with mine, it seems to be changing daily, but then it probably was anyway. I have noticed a larger number of DNA circles, but before I jump into pointing a finger, I’ll wait til it settles down and look at them like I would have anyway. I was a programmer for years, and no product exists that doesn’t get tweaked when new parameters present themselves. But one thing that DOES bug me is that I have my brother, two sons, a first cousin and hopefully another 1st cousin tested, and for the 6 tests, I am up to 9 tries. That isn’t a good track record for spitting in the bottle, I can’t really believe my two cousins, where the re-takes occurred, are at fault. They are the latest ones tested. Nor am I sure whether it is an Ancestry lab or contracted out. I am sure that they are pretty frustrated and Ancestry just shrugs it off when I call to see why.
9 try’s? Are they just not able to get results from the tests? What does Ancestry say may be the cause? I’ve been lucky so far. I’ve administered 10 tests and so far no problems.
Standard read from a screen answer from Ancestry. They didn’t get a good sample and the user did something wrong, etc. And they won’t refund your money once they have it. But it is the last test I will buy from them.
I was getting ~ 30 new matches a day, and am relieved to have a respite. There are so many different levels of our work, and I am now playing catch-up, adding records and doing new research instead of being obsessed about getting new matches each day (which I was). I now have this opportunity to reflect, put things into their proper perspective and get my OC under control LOL.
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It will be interesting to see what the new version brings.
Why do they keep making things worse?? It worked fine for me when they had many, many more distant relatives/matches. I am beginning to wonder if they know what they are doing. The DNA cousin matching has worked wonderfully for me. I still question the ethnicity results. I think they should do a better way of testing their ethnicity results, which I think still is incorrect for many people, I think something is wrong with their ethnicity “pot of people”.
I just checked Ancestry and found that my match lists have been revised according to this notice on my dna home page: “New science improves DNA matching
Great news! Your list of DNA matches has been updated and is more precise than ever. We’ve applied some of our latest scientific advancements, powered by the world’s largest consumer DNA database, to deliver this valuable update to you. Learn more about these improvements. Tell us what you think.”
I checked the 3 kits I administer. My uncle has an increase in total matches, 4th cousin matches and closer, and shaky leaf matches. His sister has a decrease in all of those categories. And I have small increases in each category. I will have to study these more closely, but just wanted to let you know that some of the accounts, at least, have been updated.
My new match list is in also. I have 54 pages and the lowest match (which also happens to have a shaky leaf match) is only 6.0 cMs.
Well mine came in and I went form 12 DNA circles to 7. Those circles were ancestors that were usually fourth grandparents or less. I still get many many hints with the connections to those ancestors that were in the circles. Hints with DNA up about ten percent. Most of the new ones are form eighth or ninth cousin. A lot of moderate added. went fom 650 4th cousins to 800.. 378 pages of matches.
My wife’s went form 31 circles to 35,about 800 DNA matches with hints an increase of 15% and her matches total 1400 pages.
The other unusual thing is that I am now finding people who are cousins from both my father’s and mother’s side. I saw that for the first time of FTDNA. MY family’s have had few geographical areas that they were both in and those were six generations ago or more?