Wherefore Art Thou, Oh Ancestor? – New Generation Tree Chart Suggests Where to Look in Your Matches’ Trees

Posted on August 2, 2025 by Roberta Estes

When you see a DNA match, do you wonder how far back in your trees your common ancestors live? How do you know where to search?

I’ve been working through my DNA match list person by person, reviewing the information and trees for each match, searching for common ancestors.

Whether you’re looking at individual matches, shared matches, clusters or triangulation groups, trees are essential for finding common ancestors.

My favorite vendor-provided tree is my MyHeritage tree. They’ve done a great job, so I’m using their tree for my examples today.

Here’s the question I’m trying to answer – based on how much DNA I share with someone, how far up that person’s tree, roughly, do I need to look for our most recent common ancestor? And, is there something else I can tell?

Tree Size Matters aka How Far Up the Tree Do I Need to Look?

So, if you click on your matches’ trees, how far up their tree do you need to look for a common ancestor? How many times will you need to click to expand their tree beyond the 4 (Ancestry) or 5 (MyHeritage) generations initially displayed, assuming your match has a tree that size? How far out, meaning how many generations do you need to hope and pray they have extended their tree?

Conversely, how many generations do YOU need to include for your tree to be useful for:

Other testers to find common ancestors with you
Theories of Family Relativity provided by MyHeritage, suggesting common ancestors with other testers
ThruLines at Ancestry
Family Matching (bucketing) at FamilyTreeDNA which assigns your matches either maternally or paternally. (Note – FamilyTreeDNA is transitioning their trees to the MyHeritage platform.)

If you’re thinking that the size of YOUR tree doesn’t matter, think again.

Not only can the vendors not help you effectively without a tree – genealogy is a collaborative sport. Other people NEED the generations in your tree to locate your common ancestors, just like you NEED to see as many generations in their tree as possible. The vendors NEED as complete a tree as you can provide to help you further.

DNA+Trees Bulldoze Brick Walls

But maybe the most important aspect is that you NEED trees to break through brick walls – especially in conjunction with DNA and tools like clustering that show you visual images of genetic commonality.

We all need to be team players when we have that option – meaning we know who are ancestors are. Our brick walls can be solved, and you can be a puzzle piece of solving brick walls for others too.

Some of my closest friends and cousins are a direct result of DNA matches and genealogy collaboration over the years. (You know who you are!) I’ve even discovered that several friends are cousins too – which I would never have happened without DNA and trees.

Guidelines for What’s Reasonable

What is a reasonable number of generations to peruse for common ancestors?

The answer is – it depends! (I’m sorry…)

Let’s sort through this.

Given that, on AVERAGE, inherited autosomal DNA from a particular ancestor is halved in each successive generation during recombination between the parents, we can calculate the expected average. However, in reality – DNA isn’t always halved. Sometimes segments are passed intact, divided but not in half, or not inherited at all. That’s why you may not match some third cousins, but match some 7^th cousins. Random recombination is, in fact, random.

Every segment has its own individual history.

That’s part of the reason we use triangulation, to confirm that a specific segment originated with a particular couple or ancestral line.

Here are a few rules of thumb, with links to articles that explain the various terms and concepts:

There are no known instances of second cousins or closer NOT matching.
Some (but not all) people find their common ancestor in the first 5 or 6 generations.
Many people have proven, triangulated matches to the 10^th generation, but those are more difficult to prove, often due to incomplete trees (brick walls) at that distance on either your side, your match’s side, or both. I have no brick walls at 5 generations, counting my parents as generation 1, but I have 6 female brick walls in the 6th generation.
If you’re lucky, you can spot your common ancestral surname on the first page of your match’s tree – and follow that line back. Note that there may be additional common ancestors, so view each of their lines to the end. The MyHeritage tree makes this super easy!
Pedigree collapse, where you, and/or the other person share multiple lines, known or unknown, is a complicating factor. Pedigree collapse often means you share more DNA than would be expected for a specific relationship.
Endogamy, which is pedigree collapse on steroids, is real and will cause many smaller matches.
Based on the number of distant versus close cousins you have, you will have MANY more smaller matches than larger ones.
And last, but not least, some matches, especially smaller ones, are identical by chance (IBC), not identical by descent (IBD).

All of that said, we can estimate the number of generations back in our matches’ trees where we might need to look for that common ancestor.

As I’ve been reviewing all of my matches, I realized that I can look at the match cM size and mentally size up just about where in their tree I will find our common ancestor. In essence, I’ve “bottled that” for you, here.

Using Trees Effectively

One of the reasons I love the MyHeritage tree is that as you need to click further back in trees beyond the generations initially displayed, which occurs often – the next generations open to the right, the earlier generations just shift left and they all remain visible.

I know that might not sound important, but it is – incredibly – especially when you’re evaluating several matches. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose track of where you are in someone’s tree. I have 9 generations open, above, and I can just keep going – with the more recent generations just shifting left.

But there’s more!

When viewing matches’ trees, I can also click on anyone in their tree, and a profile box opens to the left with additional information about that person, leaving the tree open so I don’t lose my place and have to click around to find it again. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful this is, and it’s unique to MyHeritage. You can tell the MyHeritage tree was designed by actual genealogists.

This feature is incredibly useful because many, if not most, of the common ancestors with your matches will be beyond the first page displayed.

Thank you, thank you, MyHeritage!!!

Estimating the Number of Generations by the Amount of Shared DNA

How far up the tree you’ll need to look can be estimated by the amount of DNA that you share with a particular match.

Vendors estimate the relationship of DNA matches by either the percentage of shared DNA or the number of shared centimorgans (cMs), but there’s no quick reference to show you, generationally, where to focus in you and your matches’ trees for your common ancestor.

That’s the handy reference Generation Tree Chart that I’ve created here.

In the article, Shared cM Project 2020 Analysis, Comparison and Handy Reference Charts, I compiled information from multiple sources into one chart detailing HOW MUCH DNA can be expected to be shared at various relationship levels. Shared cM Project information is also visualized at DNAPainter

What I need to know now, though, isn’t an estimate of how closely we are related, but how many generations back to look for our common ancestor in my and their trees.

As I’m clicking through my matches, the majority, by far, are smaller than larger. That makes sense, of course, because we have many more distant relatives than close relatives.

At FamilyTreeDNA, I have 8758 matches who are not immediate or close family.

Number of Matches	Relationship Range	cM Range
10	Half-1C and 1C1R	318-637 cM
4	2C and equivalent	159-318 cM
7	Between 2C-3C, such as half-2C	80-159 cM
79	3C and equivalent	40-80 cM
814	3C-4C and equivalent	20-40 cM
7548	4C and equivalent	9-20 cM
293	Below 4C and equivalent	7-9 cM

I know the people in the first two categories and some of the people in the third category, but the genetic/ancestral scavenger hunt begins there.

All Cousins Are Not Equivalent

You’re probably wondering about the word “equivalent.” Genetically, people of different relationships carry the same amount of expected DNA. We not only have 5^th cousins (5C), for example, we have:

Half-fifth-cousins
Fifth-cousins-once-removed (5C1R)
Fifth-cousins-twice-removed (5C2R)
And so forth

I wrote about determining cousin relationships, meaning halves and removed,here.

Genetically speaking, a 5C2R carries the same expected amount of shared DNA as a 6C, so they are functional equivalents. How do we resolve this and where do we look in our trees for our common ancestors?

I’m so glad you asked!

Where Do Various Cousin Levels Fall in My Tree?

We know that first cousins share grandparents, but as we get further back in our tree, it’s difficult to remember or calculate how many generations back a 6^th cousin is in our tree.

I’ve used my MyHeritage tree to display 1st through 10th cousins, labeled in red, and the generation number they represent, in black. So, my common ancestors with my second cousins are found 3 generations out in my tree.

Making things more challenging, however, is that unless we know the match already, we’re trying to figure out how closely the match is actually related to us based on their DNA. Not all cousins of any level share the same amount of DNA, so the best vendors can do is provide an estimate or relationship range.

To determine our actual relationship, we need to find our most recent common ancestor.

Where, approximately, in my tree would I look for each category of match, especially that huge group of 7548 people?

Good question!

The Generation Tree Chart is Born

I needed a quick reference for approximately how many generations back in time our common ancestors existed by how much DNA we share, so I know how far back in someone’s tree I need to look.

I’ve reorganized the data from my earlier articles and created a new resource.

The Generation Tree Chart

The Generation Tree Chart:

Is not meant to identify parents or close relatives.
Does not include parents or grandparents.
Counts your parents as generation 1. Some people count themselves as generation 1. If you’re discussing this table, keep in mind that you may be one generation “off” in your discussions with someone who counts differently.
This chart clusters the relationships according to color, based on how much DNA people of that relationship are expected to share. For example, a first-cousin-twice-removed (1C2R) shares the same expected amount of DNA with you as a second-cousin (2C).
All cousin relationships that are expected to share the same amount of DNA are in the same color band.
If you’re using this chart with Ancestry’s numbers, use the unweighted (pre-Timber) amount of DNA.

The colored bands correlate to shared DNA, but the shared ancestor isn’t necessarily the same generation back in time.

This is my “show your work” chart. You’ll notice a few things.

The “Avg % Shared” column is the amount of shared DNA expected based on a 50% division (recombination) in each generation, which almost never happens exactly.
The “Expected cM” column is the expected cM amount based a 50% division in each generation.
I’ve incorporated the DNAPainter mean, low and high range for each relationship.
The expected number of shared cMs, in the “Expected cM” column is almost always smaller than the “cM Mean” from DNAPainter. The mean is the midpoint reported in the Shared cM Project for all respondents of that relationship who reported their shared DNA – minus the outliers.

This fact that reported is often significantly higher than expected is particularly interesting. In the closer generations, it doesn’t really matter, but beginning about the 6^th blue band and the 7^th red band in the chart, the mean is often twice the expected amount.

Remember that DNAPainter numbers are based on the Shared cM Project which relies on user-reported relationships and their associated cM match amounts. You can view Blaine Bettinger’s paper about the most recent Shared cM Project version (2020) and his methodologies here.

My theory is that the more distantly people match, the less likely they are to report the relationship accurately. They may be reporting the relationship they believe to be accurate, life a full versus a half cousin, but that’s not actually the case. It’s also possible that there are multiple unknown relationships or pedigree collapse, or both.

Furthermore, from the red band to the end of the chart, the reported amounts are significantly higher than expected, which is probably a function, in part, of “all or nothing” segment transmission. In other words, if someone’s parent carries a 10 cM segment, you’re probably going to inherit all of it or none of it. If it’s actually divided to 5 and 5 cM, you’re not going to see it on any match list.

In my case, I have several 8 cM triangulated matches who descend from common Dodson ancestors whose descendants intermarried a couple of generations later. Therefore, these matches are, respectively, both my 6C2R and 7C3R from the same line (20 cM total match), two matches at 6C1R (66 cM and 19 cM), and one 6C (51 cM). These people also triangulate on multiple segments. Given the high amount of shared DNA for this relationship level, I suspect additional pedigree collapse someplace. At least one person also matches on an unrelated line that I never realized before doing this match-by-match analysis, which opens up new possibilities.

Next, the meat of this chart.

The “Generations Back in Tree” column shows where your common ancestor with someone in that cousin generation would be expected. For example, in the first three bands, all of the first cousin variants are found two generations back, and your grandparents are your common ancestors.

All of the 2C variants descend through great-grandparents, which are 3 generations back in your tree.

Plase note that you can easily find the amount of DNA that you share with a match in the “Expected cM” and “Mean” Columns, and look to the right to see the Generations Back in Tree.

For example, if I have a match where I share 20 cM of DNA, I’m going to be looking between the red band and the second white band. The generations back in tree range from 4-6, or the common ancestor could potentially be further back. In other words, if I’m lucky, I’ll spot common ancestors on the first tree page displayed, but I may well need to display additional generations.

The “Common Ancestors” column displays the common ancestor with anyone in that cousin generation. So, anyone in any variation of 3C shares great-great-grandparents with you.
“How Many” shows how many great-great-grandparents you have – 8.

Color Bands and Generations

Color bands represent the same amount of expected DNA, but the various relationships that are included in those bands represent at least two different “Generations Back in Tree.”

For example, looking at the green band, the half 1C3R will be found in the grandparents generation, or generation 2, the 2C2R and half 2C1R are in the great-grandparents, or generation 3, and the 3C is found in the great-great-grandparents, or generation 4.

Where I really needed this chart, though, was in the more distant generations. While we are clearly dealing with a range, if I see a match with 11 or 12 cM, our common ancestor is nearly always at least 6 generations out, and often more.

The Net-Net of This Exercise

The majority of my matches, 7548, fall into the red band of 9-20 cM, which should be the 4^th or 5^th generation, either great-great or GGG-grandparents, but in reality, common ancestors will often be found more distantly in matches’ trees.

Most of your matches will be 20 cM or below, meaning they are at least 4/5 generations distant, or further – which translates to NOT the first tree page displayed. This why using the MyHeritage tree is so convenient, because when you click to the next generations, they just open and it’s VERY easy to quickly click and expand every generation with no back-clicking needed. Tip – when viewing profile cards for their ancestors, be sure to note locations which are important hints too. You can also click to “research this person.”

If your match doesn’t have a tree developed to at least 5 generations, it’s unlikely that you will be able to find a common ancestor for someone with less than a 20 cM match. However, all is not lost because you may recognize a surname, and if you build out the tree for your match, you may find your common ancestor. I build out my matches’ trees often! (Yes, it’s painful and irritating, but just do it! After all, we’re genealogists. We got this.)

For people with smaller cM matches, you may be looking even further out. I have some solid triangulated matches with multiple people at 6 and 7 generations..

The further out in time, the more triangulated people you need to be confident that your common ancestor who contributed that segment is identified correctly. At that distance, most people will have dead end lines and brick walls, probably yourself included.

However, my research methodology has the potential to break through brick walls.

Brick Walls Breakers

When I’m working on match and triangulation clusters, not only am I looking for MY known ancestors, I’m also looking for common surnames, or more specifically, common ancestors between my matches trees.

In some cases, common ancestors only mean that I’m viewing first cousins to each other, but in other cases, those common ancestors between my matches, but not me, MAY POINT DIRECTLY TO A MISSING BRICK WALL ancestor of mine.

Another hint that this might be the case is when the shared cMs seem high relative to how far back your common identified ancestor is in your tree – which is the case with my Dodson cluster. There may be a second relationship obscured there, especially if they match each other more “normally” and it’s only my matches that are higher than expected with multiple people in this cluster.

Research Methodology

If you’re wondering how I approach this process, I use a spreadsheet organized by triangulation cluster because everyone in a triangulation cluster matches each other on a particular segment. This means that the triangulated segment comes from a common ancestor (or is idencal by chance.) Each match has it’s own row in the cluster on my spreadsheet.

This spreadsheet could also be organized by shared match or matrix cluster, but I prefer smaller triangulation clusters where everyone matches each other and me on the same segment – because it points to ONE shared souce of the DNA – meaning one ancestor or ancestral couple.

I downloaded my match list at FamilyTreeDNA where I can see which matches are assigned either maternally or paternally based on identified, linked relationships, and who matches on the same segments. I used that spreadsheet as the foundation of this spreadsheet, but I could also add people who match on that segment and triangulate from other vendors who provide matching segment information, such as MyHeritage.

Using my Dodson example group, this group of people above, on my father’s side, hence the blue color, also triangulates on other segments. Other clusters are significantly larger, with around 50 cluster members.

One person, JA, descends from Dodson cousins who intermarried, which is pedigree collapse, so they may carry more Dodson/Durham DNA than they would otherwise.

If someone has a small tree, I often use traditional genealogy resources to expand their tree if I recognize a surname.

I track my other ancestors’ surnames that I notice in their trees, which provides a clue for additional ancestors. Of course, common surnames sometimes aren’t useful. However, one match, JC, found in this group is a proven Crumley line cousin who has colonial Virginia ancestors, but no prior knowledge of a Dodson/Durham line – so this could be a HUGE hint for one of JC’s brick walls.

This example cluster from my mother’s side includes my mother, who I haven’t listed, and also RM, a known second cousin who I tested. Based on his known common ancestors with me, I know immediately that these segment matches all track to John David Miller and Margaret Elizabeth Lentz, or beyond. Sure enough DW has a tree where our common ancestor is David Miller, father of John David Miller, and TK is related to DW based on an obituary. So far, we know this segment originated with David Miller and his wife, Catherine Schaeffer, but we don’t know if the segment originated with the Miller or Schaeffer parent.

One additional cluster member shows a Cyrus Miller out of Pennsylvania and my initial attempt at extending their tree using WikiTree, MyHeritage and Ancestry to find a common ancestor was not fruitful, but a deep dive might well produce more, or the common ancestor could reach back into Europe.

As new people test and match, I can add them to the spreadsheet in the clusters where they fit.

Summary Generation Tree Chart

Here’s a summary version of the Generation Tree Chart for you to use, without the cM high and low ranges, and without the red boxes. This is the one I use the most.

Here’s the full chart, including the ranges, but with no red boxes.

The Bottom Line

To derive the most benefit, we all need to develop our trees as far as possible, and share with others. A rising tide lifts all ships!

It’s impossible to identify common ancestors without trees, which means it’s also impossible to use genetic genealogy to break through brick walls.

Please check your trees at the various vendors, if you have multiple trees, and at WikiTree, to be sure you’ve added your most distant known ancestor in each line.

Link your known relatives to their position in your tree at FamilyTreeDNA, which allows them to triangulate behind the scenes and assign (bucket) your matches either maternally or paternally on your match list.

What new information is waiting for you in your matches? Do you have brick walls that need to fall?

_____________________________________________________________

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If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the affiliate links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
MyHeritage Omni comprehensive “everything included” subscription plan
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA – for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA for those ordering the paperback from outside the US

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

FamilyTreeDNA’s New Matrix Shows How Your Matches Are Related to Each Other

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Roberta Estes

Click on any image to enlarge

FamilyTreeDNA’s new reworked Matrix includes relationships, in other words, how your matches are related to each other. But there’s more. It also includes the number of shared segments and the number of cMs shared between your matches.

You can then push those matches through to the chromosome browser to see exactly which segments overlap between you and your matches.

This is a game-changer!!

Why Are These Features Important?

For genealogists, knowing how your matches are related to each other, or not, is a HUGE clue about your common ancestor. Clusters of people who match each other are an important road sign directing you to a specific ancestor who contributed the same DNA segment or segments to all of you.

FamilyTreeDNA just released several VERY cool updates for their Matrix comparison tool. Plus, you get to select a group of 10 people to compare.

The purpose of the Matrix tool is to select Family Finder autosomal matches who are then displayed in a grid matrix for comparison, showing if and how those matches match each other.

Specifically:

Do your matches match each other?
What is their estimated relationship to each other?
How many segments of DNA do they share with each other?
How many cMs (centiMorgans) of DNA do they share with each other?

You can then push 7 matches through to the chromosome browser to see if they match on any of the same segments.

Automated Triangulation

If you are comparing bucketed (maternal or paternal) matches, or matches known to belong to the same side of your tree, the shared segments are automatically triangulated.

How cool is this?!!!

Keep in mind, though, that you may be related to someone through multiple ancestors, and they could be from both parent’s sides, so pay attention to the ancestral segment history.

Remember, every segment has its own unique history.

Let’s step through the new Matrix features and see how they work.

Select the Matrix

Navigate to the Matrix tool under “See More” under Autosomal DNA Results and Tools.

Under “Select Matches” you can select “All Matches” to choose from all of your matches, or you can select a grouping of matches to be displayed in the menu, below.

These groupings are shortcuts for you so you don’t have to pick everyone individually. You can also search for a name.

Click on the individuals you want to compare in the Matrix. The people you’ve selected from the group, at left, will appear in the box, at right. That’s who will be compared to each other.

Next, select which type of data will be compared.

I’m selecting “Close Relatives” for this example and “Relationship range.” First, I added my mother so I could see who matches with her.

Then I added the rest of the people I want to compare. In this case, I’ve added my closest matches, even though they are from both sides of my tree.

Relationship Range

I’ve selected “Relationship range,” which will show me how my matches estimated relationships to each other.

Based on the identity of these matches, and how they match each other, I can now determine their ancestral connection.

If I didn’t know who was related maternally and paternally, this grid would remove all doubt became I’m comparing to one of my parents.

If you don’t have a parent, adding close, known relatives on one or both sides will help immensely.

Be sure to make notes about what you’ve discovered on your matches page, and paint to DNAPainter if that’s how you’re tracking your segments to ancestors.

Number of Segments Shared

Now, I’ve selected “Number of segments shared” to compare the same group of people.

You can see the number of shared segments between Mom’s matches. Donald and Cheryl are full siblings.

The display shows how these people match Mom, and each other.

Melissa is Mom’s paternal second cousin. I was able to piece this together with the help of how she matches Mom and Mom’s known paternal first cousins, Cheryl and Donald.

Total cMs Shared

Next, I’m selecting “Total cMs shared” for comparison.

Looking at the number of shared cMs, even if I didn’t know that Donald and Cheryl were full siblings, I would now.

You can also push these through to the chromosome browser. I’ll illustrate in a minute.

Bucketed or Parental Side Matching

My favorite groupings for the new Matrix are the bucketed, meaning parental or maternal “side” matching.”

When your matches are already bucketed, thanks to having linked known matches to their profile card in your tree, the system does a lot of the “side” work for you behind the scenes.

When you select “Maternal, “Paternal” or “Paternal and Maternal” matches, the people who have been bucket to either side, or those related to you on both sides, are listed in the selection box.

I’m selecting 7 of my maternal bucketed matches because I’m going to push them through to the chromosome browser for additional evaluation. I’m not including my mother because I already know these people are related to both me and her, because they are bucketed maternally.

They’re compared in the various matrix configurations.

From the Shared cM comparison table, I can easily click to display matches in the chromosome browser.

If you’re comparing more than 7 people, you’ll need to reduce it to 7. I excluded my Mom because I already know she matches all of them.

Click on the Compare Chromosome Browser at the bottom for the 7 people selected.

I know that cousin Charles descends from Mom’s paternal Lentz line, and has no other connection, so I know that these other cousins who also match me on that same segment are also from Mom’s Lentz line.

I can also tell that the shared segments on chromosome 1 are from Mom’s maternal Lore line.

Shown here are the common ancestors in Mom’s pedigree chart. They are 4 and 5 generations back in time for me.

Look how easy that was!

I love this new Matrix tool.

Triangulation

Because three or more people, including me, match on the same segments, this means they also triangulate.

In the example above, we have two distinct triangulation groups. I’m only showing chromosomes 1-3 for illustration purposes, but there are also more triangulation groups on the other chromosomes. If I add other people, new triangulation groups will form!

Of course, these are my maternal bucketed matches, so I’m safe to reach that conclusion. If my father’s matches were also loaded here, I would have to check the matrix and see if these people also matched each other before I could determine that they triangulate.

Check Your Matches and Upload

Be sure to upload any tests to FamilyTreeDNA that you manage at other vendors, and encourage your cousins to upload too.

This combination of features is unique to FamilyTreeDNA. The more relatives you have available to match, especially when you already know the common ancestor, the better. Be sure to link your matches to their placard in your tree so that FamilyTreeDNA can do the bucketing for you.

Even if you don’t link people, you can still benefit greatly from the new matrix tool by just having your DNA available for matching. The matrix will help you sort out matches and identify who is related to whom, and how.

Take a look! What are you discovering?

_____________________________________________________________

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
MyHeritage Omni comprehensive “everything included” subscription plan
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

23andMe Trouble – Step-by-Step Instructions to Preserve Your Data and Matches

Posted on September 19, 2024 by Roberta Estes

I don’t know what the future holds for 23andMe, but the financial floodwaters are rising. I’ve been torn about whether I should risk alarming people, perhaps unnecessarily, by writing about this, and if so, exactly what to say.

I’ve decided that the responsible action is to share my concerns with you and suggest that you act proactively – just in case.

Contrary to linking within this article which is what I normally do, I’m placing a list of relevant articles about what’s happening at 23andMe at the end for your reference. There are quite a few. I’ve located reputable articles without paywalls. There are even more publications today.

What’s Going On?

If you’re following the saga of 23andMe, you’ll know that they have been in financial trouble for some time, worsened by their data breach in October 2023. Not only was customer information accessed and downloaded, but 23andMe reacted extremely slowly, which made the situation worse. Lawsuits followed. I’ve written about the deteriorating situation several times.

Their financial situation has continued its decline ever since.

Recent developments, including the inability of Anne Wojcicki to raise funding to take the company private again, the $30 million data breach settlement this week, a further drop in their stock price, and just yesterday, the resignation of the board of directors in its entirety (except for Wojcicki), makes their future increasingly uncertain if not outright bleak.

Concerns

I am very concerned about the future of 23andMe. Never having experienced anything like this in our industry, I have no prediction about exactly what will happen, or when. That’s unknowable. I do know that I’m quite worried as are other professionals in this field.

I am strongly considering deleting my 23andme accounts. My personal hesitation is that I author this blog and I can’t write about 23andMe if I don’t have an account there.

Were it not for that, I would strongly consider deleting my account after recording my matches and downloading my data. 23andMe has ceased to be useful for me and has increasingly become a liability.

Please do NOT panic and run over there and delete your account without thoughtful consideration and taking these preservation measures first. Truly, I will tell you if I think you need to act on something immediately, as I have in the past.

I am NOT specifically recommending deleting your account. Everyone’s circumstances and goals are different.

For example, if you’re an adoptee fishing in all the ponds, you may want to wait. If your focus is health, you’re probably not reading this article, but that might be justification for people to wait. Or, if you’re a genealogist who wants as many matches as possible, you may want to wait and see how things shake out.

Regardless, the following recommendations ARE for everyone. Being prepared is better than being surprised.

Recommendations

Whether you choose to delete your account at 23andMe in the near future, wait, or maybe never, I have the following recommendations, just in case.

Download your raw DNA data file.
Preserve your matches in some fashion.
Save your ethnicity segments file.

Here are step-by-step instructions for each item, plus several tips and hints.

Download Your Raw DNA File

Download your raw DNA file so that you can upload it elsewhere if you wish.

To download your raw DNA file, click on Resources, then “Browse Data.”

Select “Download” at the top of the next page where you will be prompted for your birth date.

You will then see a full page of “Important Warnings to Consider.”

Scroll to the bottom

Check the “I understand” box and then click on “Submit Request.”

You will receive an email when your file is ready to be downloaded.

If your email is not current, you will need to call or contact 23andMe support for assistance.

You can upload your 23andMe DNA file to MyHeritage, here, to GEDmatch, and to FamilyTreeDNA again soon. I’ve written instructions for uploading and downloading data to/from each vendor in the article DNA File Upload-Download and Transfer Instructions to and from DNA Testing Companies, here.

Preserve Your 23andMe Matches

Next, review and preserve your matches shown under DNA Relatives. You may want to use screenshots or create a spreadsheet, which is my recommendation. You’ll be able to retain and preserve a LOT more information using a spreadsheet, including how your matches are related to each other.

The good news, or bad news, depending on your perspective, is that unless you have paid for a subscription, you’ll only have 1500 matches to deal with. With a subscription, you’ll have up to about 5,000.

Match Information Spreadsheet

I suggest working with your closest matches first.

You’ll find your matches under “Ancestry,” then “DNA Relatives.” Matches are listed in the closest match order.

For each match you can view information, including:

Birth year and location
Your predicted relationship
If they are in the genetic tree that 23andMe has created for you
Their ancestors’ birthplaces, if they have provided that information.
Their family surnames
An important link to their family tree if they have provided that link
Their ethnicity which may be important if you share a common ethnicity that suggests or precludes lineages
High level Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups
Relatives in Common which are shared matches – and how much DNA your two matches share with each other
Any notes you’ve made

Other features previously available at 23andMe were discontinued after the breach.

If you downloaded your matches file before the October 2023 breach, you’re in luck because you can simply update that file with your new matches except for segment information. That’s what I’m doing. Your download file will be a CSV file styled “roberta_estes_relatives_download” where your name replaces mine.

If you didn’t download your matches before the breach, you can’t today, as that’s one of the features they removed after the breach.

Recording your matches’ information is the first step, but there’s an important second step too that will help you piece all of this information together.

Relatives in Common Relationship Grid

I strongly suggest creating a relationship grid detailing who matches whom for your shared matches. Yes, I know that’s a LOT of work, but it may well be worth it to wring every ounce out of your DNA matches. Plus, you can then keep it current as new matches arrive. Right now, I’ve set a goal for myself to complete 100 per day. That’s do able.

The “Relatives in Common” feature is extremely useful and facilitates constructing your tree and fitting your matches into their relative places in your tree. Relatives in Common tells you not only how much DNA you share with your matches but also their estimated relationship to each other and how much DNA they share.

To begin the process, you really only need to be able to identify “someone” and then chain people together based on shared matches and estimated relationships. I’ll show you.

To find Relatives in Common information and how much DNA they share with each other, click on a specific match, preferably one that you know, under DNA Relatives, then scroll down to “Find Relatives in Common.”

Here’s the list of matches shared between DH and me.

Here’s the beginning of the relationship spreadsheet I created.

This example shows the amount of DNA I share with my matches in the left column, then how much they share with each other. I’ve color-coded the results. Blue is my father’s paternal line. His mother’s line is not represented in these matches. Purple is my mother’s maternal line, and apricot is her paternal line.

DH is estimated by 23andMe to be my second cousin and shares 7.13% of my paternal DNA across 17 segments. DH also shares DNA with James, George, Daniel, RA, and Joyce.

You can see how much DNA any match shares with me, as well as with any other match, which I’ve entered into the chart.

Unfortunately, only one person, Patricia, has included a link to a tree, but our common ancestor was shown there. In two other cases, surnames provided information, as did previous communications. I can fit almost every one of these people into my tree, at least tentatively, using this information. Sometimes I match them at other vendors too, providing additional information.

If you used Genetic Affairs to cluster your 23andMe matches before the breach, you may already have at least part of your match and shared match information. I save everything to my computer, and I hope you did too.

I happen to know how two of these people are related to me, so I can begin my “shared tree” there, adding other people as I figure out their shared relationships. For example, if a match is my second cousin and also a second cousin to another match, chances are really good that we all share great-grandparents. Remember that 23andMe has taken a stab at genetic tree construction on their genetically created (now nearly unreadable) Family Tree, found under “Family and Friends.”

This tree may or may not help you.

Please note – if you wish to message any of your matches, you need to do that through the 23andMe internal platform, so don’t wait, do it now by clicking on your match, then “Message.”

Download Your Ethnicity Results and Segments

Download your ethnicity results and segment information so that you can use your segment location information to compare to matches from other companies that provide matching segment information.

Your ethnicity information is available under Ancestry, then Ancestry Composition, then Select Scientific Details.

Scroll all the way to the bottom – which is a LONG way.

Select the confidence level and then click on Download Raw Data.” I use 50%, but you can download each one if you want.

The resulting file holds the locations on your chromosomes of your various estimated ethnicities. You can upload that file to DNAPainter to correlate with your matches from any testing company, and with ancestors whose DNA you’ve identified.

I wrote about that, here, and have discussed how to “walk ethnicity segments back in time” using DNAPainter in several presentations. This technique is how I identified my Native American ancestor on my mother’s side, which was then confirmed by mitochondrial DNA testing on an appropriately descended individual.

Prognosis

If 23andMe remains viable, you’ll be ahead of the game. You’ll have preserved your information and may have identified some new matches and their ancestors.

However, if 23andMe doesn’t survive or is sold, you’ll have protected your investment and won’t be caught by surprise.

If you’re thinking about deleting your account, take the steps set forth above, first. The reason I’m providing this information now is so that, in case something happens, you have time to complete these tasks to protect your important information and matches.

If you choose to delete your 23andMe account, you’ll have preserved as much of your investment as possible. Remember, think before deleting because once you’ve deleted your account, you can’t undo it without testing again. This is especially important if you’re managing the DNA of someone who is now deceased. In that case, delete is irrecoverable.

Let’s just hope this all blows over, and you’ll have benefitted by finding new genealogy information.

Recent News Articles

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/31/23andme-ceo-anne-wojcicki-files-proposal-to-take-company-private-.html

https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/23andme-special-committee-responds-ceos-take-private-proposal

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/23andme-settles-data-breach-lawsuit-30-million-2024-09-13/

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/17/23andme-independent-directors-resign-from-board-read-the-ceo-memo.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/09/18/23andme-board-turmoil-dna-test/

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/23andme-resignations-anne-wojcicki

https://investors.23andme.com/news-releases/news-release-details/independent-directors-23andme-resign-board

https://investors.23andme.com/node/9531/pdf

My Articles

https://dna-explained.com/2023/08/17/23andme-and-glaksosmithkline-partnership-ends-sparking-additional-layoffs/

https://dna-explained.com/2023/10/07/23andme-user-accounts-exposed-change-your-password-now/

https://dna-explained.com/2023/10/24/the-23andme-data-exposure-new-info-considerations-and-a-pause-strategy/

https://dna-explained.com/2023/10/29/23andme-dna-relatives-connections-event-history-report-and-other-security-tools/

https://dna-explained.com/2023/12/07/23andme-concludes-their-investigation-6-9-million-customers-data-exposed/

Six Ways to Figure Out How We’re Related

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Roberta Estes

In my latest Webinar, Six Ways to Figure Out How We’re Related, I discuss the various tools from Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and 23andMe – plus clusters from Genetic Affairs and the amazing DNAPainter.

This webinar lives in the Legacy Family Tree Webinar library, but as part of the “webtember” lineup, you can view it for free through the end of September.

It’s always exciting to discover a new match at one of the DNA testing companies, which, of course, begs the question of how you’re related.

So, what are the six ways to figure out how you’re related, and how do you use them?

Come along for a step-by-step guide!

Shared Matches

We begin with how each vendor handles shared matches, what that feature is called, where to find the information, and how to interpret what they are telling you.

23andMe goes a step further and creates a genetic tree, of sorts, although that functionality has changed since their breach last October.

Bucketing and Sides

Two vendors go a step further and provide unique tools to divide your matches maternally and paternally.

FamilyTreeDNA buckets your matches maternally and paternally (or both) based on matches you link to their profile cards in your tree. FamilyTreeDNA then uses your linked matches to triangulate with other matches and assign your matches accordingly, providing a maternal and paternal match list. Bucketing, also known as Family Matching, is one of my favorite tools.

Note that linking matches at FamilyTreeDNA requires that you have transferred your tree to MyHeritage. I wrote about that and provided instructions here and here, and produced a complimentary webinar, too.

Ancestry also divides your matches by parent, but they use a different technique based on their Sideview technology and either ethnicity or shared matches.

Surnames and Locations

Surnames and locations, either separately or together, provide HUGE hints!

MyHeritage provides a nice summary for each of your matches that includes ancestral surnames, a map of locations in common, and “Smart Matches” which shows you people in common in both of your trees. There are several ways to use these tools.

FamilyTreeDNA also provides a list of surnames. You can view either the surnames in common with a match, or all of their ancestral surnames, with locations if provided. The tester enters these surnames, and we review how to complete that step.

Ancestry also provides shared surnames, with clickable links to the number of people in your matches tree with that surname, plus common locations.

X-DNA

X-DNA is probably the most underutilized DNA matching tool. While each of the vendors actually test the X chromosome, only one, FamilyTreeDNA, provides X-matching. You can obtain X-matching results by uploading your DNA file to FamilyTreeDNA. I’ve provided upload/download instructions for all companies, here.

X-DNA has a very unique inheritance pattern because males only inherit an X chromosome from their mother which limits the number of potential common ancestors for any two testers. In other words, X-DNA matching does half your work for you!

Clustering Technology – AutoClusters, the Matrix and DNAPainter

In the past few years, match clustering has become a very useful tool. Clustering shows which of your matches match you and each other.

Genetic Affairs offers several flavors of these clusters, and both MyHeritage and GEDmatch have incorporated Genetic Affairs clusters into their product offerings.

If you haven’t used AutoClusters yet, by all means, try them out.

FamilyTreeDNA offers the Matrix, a slightly different version of clustering. You can select 10 people from your match list to see if they also match each other. Shared matches don’t automatically mean triangulation between you and those two people, or even that all three people descend from the same line. However, if the people are bucketed to your same side (parent) and they share common segments with you in the chromosome browser, they triangulate.

You’ll want to paint those matches to DNAPainter to determine which ancestor you share, especially if they haven’t provided a tree.

DNAPainter provides your chromosomes as the “canvas” upon which to paint your matches in order to correlate segments with ancestors and identify common ancestral lines with mystery matches.

Three vendors, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and GEDmatch provide segment information with matches for you to paint. I illustrate how I walk segments back in time, identifying our most distant common ancestor possible.

Theories of Family Relativity and ThruLines

Both MyHeritage and Ancestry provide a combination of DNA matching and tree triangulation, where they search the trees of your DNA matches to find common ancestors with you – although their implementation is different.

MyHeritage’s Theories of Family Relativity provides varying theories about common ancestors for you and a specific match using both trees and historical documents. You can review the various pathways and confirm or reject theories. I love this tool.

Ancestry’s Thrulines functions a bit differently, showing you all of your matches that descend from a common ancestor in all your matches’ trees. Sometimes, the trees are incorrect, but Theories of Family Relativity and ThruLines should still be used as hints.

I showed how ThruLines helped me discover what happened to one of my ancestor’s grandchildren who was lost to the family at his mother’s death – and to all of us since. Not anymore.

Bonus – Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA

Only FamilyTreeDNA offers both Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA testing and matching. All of the tools above pertain to autosomal DNA testing, which is named Family Finder at FamilyTreeDNA. Illustrated by the green arrow below, autosomal DNA testing measures and compares the DNA you inherited from each ancestral line, but that’s not the only game in town.

Y-DNA, in blue, for males, tracks the direct paternal line, which is the surname line in Western cultures. Mitochondrial DNA, in red, is passed from mothers to all of their children. Therefore, everyone can test, revealing matches and information about their mother’s direct matrilineal lineage.

Y-DNA testing includes the amazing Discover tool with a baker’s dozen different reports, including ancient DNA. Mitochondrial DNA will soon have its own MitoDiscover after the rollout of the new Mitotree.

Both tests include “Matches Maps” to help you determine how you are related to your matches, as well as where your ancestors came from before the advent of surnames.

The Advanced Matching feature allows you to select multiple tests to see if your matches match you on combined types of tests.

Tune In

Now that you know what we cover in the webinar, please tune in to see how to use these awesome tools. Be sure to fish in all four “ponds” plus GEDmatch, where you may find people who didn’t test at a company that provides a chromosome browser or matching segment information.

Tools provided by the DNA testing vendors facilitate multiple ways to determine how we match and which ancestor(s) we have in common.

You can watch the webinar, here.

Additionally, subscribers to Legacy Family Tree Webinars have access to the 25-page syllabus with even more information!

A Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscription normally costs $49.95 per year, but through the end of September, there’s a coupon code good for 20% off. Just click here, then enter webtember24 at the checkout.

Enjoy!

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You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Pedigree Collapse and DNA – Plus an Easy-Peasy Shortcut

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Roberta Estes

Pedigree collapse can be responsible for you sharing more DNA than expected with another person.

What is pedigree collapse?

Pedigree collapse occurs when you descend from the same ancestor(s) through more than one path. In other words, you descend from those ancestors through two different children. Therefore, when matching with someone else who descends through those ancestors, you may share more DNA than would be expected from that level of relationship on the surface, meaning without pedigree collapse.

Endogamy is different and means that you descend from a community of ancestors who descend from the same group of ancestors. Often out-marriage is discouraged or otherwise impossible, so all of the group of people share common ancestors, which means they often match on segments without sharing close ancestors. Examples of descent from endogamous populations are Jewish, Amish, Brethren, Acadian, Native Hawaiian, Māori, and Native American people, among others.

I wrote about the difference between pedigree collapse and endogamy in the article, What’s the Difference Between Pedigree Collapse and Endogamy?

I’ve also written about endogamy in the following articles:

Degrees of Consanguinity

If you’re a genealogist, and especially if you’ve worked with Catholic church records, you’ve probably heard of “degrees of sanguinity,” which are prohibited blood relationships in marriage. For example, siblings are prohibited from marrying because they are too closely related, according to church doctrine.

By SVG remake by WClarke based on original by User:Sg647112c – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54804980

Today, we think of the genetic results of inbreeding, but originally, relationships (and consanguinity) also had to do with inheritance.

Essentially, marriages are prohibited by degree of sanguinity, and that degree is calculated based on this relationship chart. Prohibited degrees of consanguinity changed over time. Sometimes, a priest granted dispensation for a couple to wed who was of a prohibited degree of sanguinity. That’s a genealogy goldmine because it tells you where to look for common ancestors. It also tells you something else – that you may share more DNA with other descendants of that couple than one would otherwise expect.

More Than You Ever Expected

Recently, I’ve been working with an academic research team on a very interesting ancient DNA case that involves pedigree collapse. Doing the genealogy and genetic work on how much DNA was expected in a match without pedigree collapse, and how much was expected with pedigree collapse, was very interesting.

The team was working to confirm relationships between people in a cemetery. The burials shared more DNA than anticipated for who the people were believed to be. Enter pedigree collapse.

I can’t disclose the circumstances just yet – but I will as soon as possible. It’s an extremely interesting story.

We needed to ensure that readers, both academic and more generally understood pedigree collapse and our calculations. Why did burials share higher than expected DNA than indicated by the expected relationships? This puzzle becomes much more interesting when you add in pedigree collapse.

Academic researchers and scientists have access to models and mathematical algorithms that normal air-breathing humans don’t have easy access to.
So, what do you do if you and a match have a known pedigree collapse in your tree? How much DNA can you expect to share, and how do you calculate that?

These are all great questions, so let’s take a look.

I’m sharing the PowerPoint slides I prepared for our team on this topic. I’ve removed anything that would identify or even hint at the project and modified the slides slightly for easier consumption.

This presentation has never been given publicly, so you’re first! It seemed a waste to do this work and not share it!

Pedigree Collapse and DNA

Pedigree collapse occurs when you share an ancestor or ancestors through different pathways. In this case, the person at the bottom is the child of parents who were third cousins, but the father’s grandparents were also first cousins.

First cousin marriages were common in the not-too-distant past. Today, you could easily marry your third or fourth cousin and not even realize it unless someone in your family just happened to be a genealogist.

Genealogists use various tools to calculate the expected amount of shared DNA in relationships – first cousins, siblings, or half-siblings, for example. Both the Shared cM Project at DNAPainter and SegcM at DNA-Sci Tools provide tools.

Take a look at the article, DNA: In Search of…Full and Half-Siblings, for some great examples.

First cousins share common grandparents. Their child inherits DNA from two paths that lead back to the same ancestors. Some of that DNA will be the same, meaning the child will or can inherit the same ancestral segment from both parents, and some will be different segments from those ancestors that the parents do not share with each other.

Inheritance – How It Works

Let’s look at inheritance to see how this happens.

Let’s start with full and half-siblings.

Each child inherits half of their DNA from each parent, but not entirely the same half (unless they are identical twins.)

Therefore, full siblings will match on about 50% of their DNA, which is illustrated by the segments on the chromosome browser. However, and this will be important in a minute, about 25% of their DNA is exactly the same, when compared to each other, on the chromosome inherited from their father and mother at the same location.

On the chromosome browser, you can see that three siblings do match. One sibling (the grey background chromosomes) is the person both other full siblings are being compared to, in the example above.

What you can’t determine is whether they share the exact same DNA on both their mother and father’s Chromosome 1, where the matches overlap, for example. We know they both match their sibling, but the top person could match the sibling due to a match from their paternal chromosome in that location, and the bottom person could match due to their maternal chromosome. There’s no way to know, at least not from that view.

The areas where the siblings share exactly the same DNA on both their maternal and paternal chromosome, both, with each other are called Fully Identical REgions (FIR), as compared to Half Identical Regions (HIR) where the siblings match on either their maternal or paternal copy of the chromosome, but not both.

23andMe used to provide a tool that displayed both types of matches.

Since the data exposure incident at 23andMe, they no longer provide this lovely tool, and since that help page is now gone as well, I doubt this view will ever be returned. Fortunately, I grabbed a screenshot previously.

The dark purple segments are fully identical, meaning that these two full siblings match on both their maternal and paternal chromosomes in that location. The magenta are half identical, which means they match on EITHER the maternal or paternal chromosome in that location but not on both chromosomes. Of course, no color (light grey) means there is no match at that location.

Please note that because 23andMe counts fully identical regions (FIR) twice, their total matching cMs are elevated. The other companies do NOT count those regions twice.
GEDmatch also shows both full and half-identical regions as described more fully, here.

In this full-sibling example from GEDmatch, the green segments are fully identical regions across both the maternal and paternal chromosomes.

The definition of FIR is that two people match on both their mother’s and father’s DNA on the same chromosome. Therefore, in following generations, there technically should not be FIR matches, but in some instances we do find FIR matches outside of full siblings.

Moving down another generation, first cousins may share SOME fully identical DNA, especially if they are from an endogamous population or their mothers are related, but less, and it’s generally scattered.

Here’s my Mom’s GEDmatch comparison to her first cousin. The purple-legend segment shows a match, and the green within that match shows fully identical locations.

You can easily see that these are very scattered, probably representing “chance” or population-based fully identical matching locations within a segment. Comparatively, the green FIR segments for full siblings are dense and compact, indicating a segment that is fully identical.

Evaluating matches for dense FIR segments (known as runs of homozygosity – ROH) is a good indicator of parental relatedness.

Double Cousins

Of course, if these people were double first cousins, where the wives of the siblings were sisters to each other – the first cousins would have large patches of dense green FIR segments.

First cousins share grandparents.

Double first cousins occur when two people share both sets of grandparents, meaning that brothers marry sisters. Normal first cousins share about 12.5% of their DNA, but double first cousins share about 25% of their DNA.

In this case, Sharon and Donna descend from two brothers, James and Henry, who were sons of Joseph and Jane. In this scenario, James and Henry married unrelated women, so Sharon and Donna are first cousins to each other.

Double first cousins share both sets of grandparents so they would inherit FIR from both sets of siblings.

You need to be aware of this, but for now, let’s stick with non-double relationships. You’re welcome!

DNA Inheritance

Here’s a different example of DNA inheritance between two siblings.

You can see that in the first 50 cM segment, both siblings inherited the same DNA from both parents, so they match on both their mother’s and father’s chromosomes. They match on both the 50 cM green and 50 cM pink segments. 23andMe would count that as 100 cMs, but other vendors only count a segment IF it matches, NOT if it matches twice. So, other vendors count this as a 50 cM match.
In column two, these two people don’t match at all because they inherited different DNA from each parent. In this example, Person 1 inherited their maternal grandmother’s segment, and Person 2 inherited their maternal grandfather’s segment.
In column three, our siblings match on their paternal grandmother’s segment.
In column four, no match again.

How much can we expect to inherit at different levels – on average?

Different tools differ slightly, and all tools provide ranges. In our example, I’ve labeled the generations and how much shared DNA we would expect – WITHOUT pedigree collapse.

Ancestral couple	Inherited cM	Inherited %
Gen 1 – Their children	3500 cM	50
Gen 2 – Grandchildren	1750 cM	25
Gen 3 – Great-Grandchildren	875 cM	12.5
Gen 4 – GG-Grandchildren	437.5	6.25
Gen 5 – GGG-Grandchildren	218.75	3.125
Gen 6 – GGGG-Grandchildren	109.375	1.5625
Gen 7 – GGGG-Grandchildren	54.6875	.078125

Please note that this is inherited DNA, not shared (matching) DNA with another person.

Adding in pedigree collapse, you can see that we have three Gen 1 people involved, three Gen 2 descendants, and two Gen 3 and Gen 4 people.

Each of those people inherit and pass on segments from our original couple at the top.
We have three distinct inheritance paths leading from our original couple to Gen 5.
We have a first cousin marriage at Gen 2, at left, which means that their child, Gen 3, will have an elevated amount of the DNA of their common ancestors.

In Gen 4, two people marry who both descend from a common couple, meaning their child, Gen 5, descends from that couple in three different ways.

Did your eyes just glaze over? Well, mine did, too, which is why I had to draw all of this out on paper before putting it into PowerPoint.

The Gen 5 child inherits DNA from the ancestral couple via three pathways.
The next thing to keep in mind is that just because you inherit the DNA from an ancestor does not mean you match another descendant. Inheritance is not matching.

You must inherit before you can match, but just because you and someone else have inherited a DNA segment from a common ancestor does not guarantee a match. Those segments could be in different locations.

Categories of DNA

When dealing with inheritance and descent, we discuss four categories of DNA.

In the first generation, full siblings will, in about 25% of their locations, share the same DNA that has been inherited from both parents on the same chromosome. In other words, they match each other both maternally and paternally at that location. Those are FIR.
The DNA you inherit from an ancestor.
The DNA that both you and your cousin(s) inherit from a common ancestor and match on the same location. This is shared DNA.
The DNA that both you and your cousin(s) inherit from a common ancestor, but it’s not in the same location, so you do not match each other on that segment. Just because you inherit DNA from that ancestor does not necessarily mean that your cousin has the same DNA from that ancestor. This is inherited but not shared.

Inheritance is Not The Same as Matching

Inheritance is not the same thing as matching.

Inheriting our ancestor’s DNA isn’t enough. We need to match someone else who inherited that same segment in order to attribute the segment to that specific ancestor.

Depending on how close or distant the relationship, two people may share a lot of DNA (like full siblings), or one segment in more distant matches, or sometimes none at all. As we reach further back in time, we inherit less and less of our increasingly distant ancestors’ DNA, which means we match increasingly fewer of their descendants. I wrote about determining ancestral percentages in the article, Ancestral Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?

Based on how much DNA we share with other known relatives, we can estimate relationships.

Pedigree collapse, where one descends from common ancestors more than once, increases the expected amount of inherited DNA, which in turn increases the probability of a shared match with other descendants.

Ancestral Couple	Matching Between	Shared DNA ~cM	Shared DNA ~%	Range (Shared cM Project)	FIR – Identical DNA
Generation 1	Full Siblings	2600	50	1613-3488	25%
Generation 2	First Cousins	866	12.5	396-1397	0
Generation 3	Second Cousins	229	3.125	41-592	0
Generation 4	Third Cousins	73	0.78125	0-234	0

Here’s an example through third cousins, including expected FIR, fully identical regions where full siblings match each other on both their maternal and paternal chromosomes in the same location.

I provided a larger summary chart incorporating the information from public sources, here, minus FIR.

Of course, double cousins, where two pairs of siblings marry each other, represent another separate level of complexity. DNA-Sci’s Double Cousin Orogen explains this here and also provides a tool.

Double cousins, meaning when two pairs of siblings marry each other, are different from doubly related.

Doubly related means that two people descend from common ancestors through multiple paths, meaning multiple lines of descent. Doubly related is pedigree collapse. Double cousins is pedigree collapse on steroids.

Pedigree Collapse, aka Doubly Related

Calculating expected inherited DNA from multiple lines of descent is a bit more challenging.

A handy-dandy chart isn’t going to help with multiple relationships because the amount of expected shared DNA is based on the number of and distance of relationships.

Please note that this discussion excludes X-DNA matching which has its own inheritance path.

It’s time for math – but I promise I’ll make this relatively easy – pardon the pun.

What’s Behind the Math?

So, here’s the deal. I want you to understand why and how this works. You may not need this information today, but eventually, you probably will. This is one of those “refer back to it” articles for your personal library. Read this once as a conceptual overview, then read it again if you need to work through the relationships.

This is easy if you take it one step at a time.

First, we calculate each path separately.

In the first generation, full siblings inherit identical (FIR) DNA on both their mother’s and father’s chromosomes.

In the second generation, the male inherits the maternal segment, and the female inherits the paternal segment.

In the third generation, their child inherits those segments intact from both of their parents. The child inherits from the ancestral couple twice – once through each parent.

In generation 1, those two segments were FIR, fully identical regions. Both of those men married unrelated wives. When their children, Gen 2, were born, they had either the maternal or paternal segment from their father because they had an entirely different segment in that location from their mother.

However, the child in Gen 3 inherited the original green segment from their father and the original pink segment from their mother – reuniting those FIR segments in later generations.

First Cousin’s Child

Let’s calculate the inheritance for the child of those two first cousins who married.

Ancestral couple	Inherited cM	Inherited %
Gen 3 – Great-Grandchildren	875 cM	12.5
Gen 3 – Great-Grandchildren	875 cM	12.5
Total	1750 cM	25

Normally, a Gen 3 person inherits roughly 875 cM, or 12.5% of their great-grandparent’s DNA. However, since their grandparents were first cousins, they inherit about twice that amount, or 1750 cM.

While a Gen 3 person inherits as much as a grandchild (25%) normally would from the original couple, they won’t match on all of that DNA. When matching, we need to subtract some of that DNA out of the equation for two reasons:

In the first generation, between siblings, some of their DNA was fully identical and cannot be identified as such.
In the second generation, they will each have some parts of the ancestral couple’s DNA that will not match the other person. So, they inherit the same amounts from their common ancestors, but they can only be expected to match on about 25% of that amount two generations later.

However, the child of first cousins who marry inherits more DNA of the common ancestors than they would if their parents weren’t related. It’s just that some of that DNA is the same, potentially on the maternal and paternal chromosomes again, and some won’t match at all.

While matching DNA is the whole point of autosomal DNA testing, fully identical DNA matching regions (FIR) cannot be identified that way. For the most part, other than identifying full and half-siblings, sometimes pedigree collapse, and parent-relatedness, fully identical DNA isn’t terribly useful for genealogy. However, we still need to understand how this works.

It’s OK if you just want to say, “I know we’ll share more DNA due to pedigree collapse,” but if you want to know how much more to expect, keep reading. I’d really like for you to understand use cases and be able to track those segments.

Remember, we will learn a super-easy shortcut at the end, so for now, just read. It’s important to understand why the shortcut works.

Sibling Inheritance Versus Matching

In order to compare apples to apples, sometimes we need to remove some portion of DNA in our calculations.

Remember story problems where you had to “show your work”?

Calculating Expected DNA

Here’s the step-by-step logic.

Ancestral couple	Inherited Non-Identical cM	Inherited %
Gen 1 first son	3500	50
Gen 1 second son	3500	50
Less identical segments (FIR)	-1750 (subtracted from one child for illustration)	25

Gen 2 son	1750	25
Gen 2 daughter married Gen 2 son	875	12.5

Gen 3 – Their child path through Gen 2 son	875 cM	12.5
Gen 3 – Their child path through Gen 2 mother	437.5 cM	6.25

Their child total without removing identical segments	1750 cM	25
Their child total after removing identical segments	1312.5	18.75

Category	cMs	Most Probable	Degree Relationship
No Pedigree Collapse	875	98% Great grandparent or great-grandchild, great or half aunt/uncle, great or half niece/nephew, 1C	3
Pedigree Collapse without identical segment removal	1750	100% Grandparent, grandchild, aunt/uncle, half-sibling, niece/nephew	2
Pedigree Collapse after identical segment removal	1312.5	56% grandparent, grandchild, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew, half-sibling	2

Just because you HAVE this much shared (and/or identical) DNA doesn’t mean you’ll match on that DNA.

Next, let’s look at Gen 5 child who inherited three ways from the ancestors.

If you think, “This will never happen,” remember that it did, which is why I was working through this story problem. It’s not uncommon for families to live in the same area for generations. You married who you saw – generally, your family and neighbors, who were likely also family.

Let’s take a look at that 5^th generation child.

The more distantly related, the less pedigree collapse affects matching DNA. That’s not to say we can ignore it.

Here’s our work product. See, this isn’t difficult when you take it step by step, one at a time.

Ancestral couple	Inherited Non-Identical cM	Inherited %
Gen 3 Child total after removing identical segments	1312.5	18.75

Gen 4 father – half of Gen 3 father	656.25	9.375

Gen 5 child – half of Gen 4 father	328.125	4.6875
Gen 5 child – mother’s side calculated from ancestral couple normally	218.75	3.125
Total for Gen 5 Child	546.875	7.8125

Inheritance Ranges

Lots of factors can affect how much DNA a person in any given generation inherits from an ancestor. The same is true with multiple paths from that same ancestor. How do we calculate multiple path inheritance ranges?

As with any relationship, we find a range, or combined set of ranges for Gen 5 Child based on the multiple pathways back to the common ancestors.

Gen 5 Child	Inherited Non-Identical cM	Inherited %
Without removing either paternal or maternal identical cMs	656.25	9.375
After removing paternal identical cMs only	546.875	7.8125
After removing maternal cMs only	546.875	7.8125
After removing both paternal and maternal identical cMs	362.50	6.25
Normal Gen 5 no pedigree collapse	218	3.125

What About Matching?

Inheritance and matching are different. Most of the time, two people are unlikely to share all of the DNA they inherited from a particular ancestor. Of course, inheriting through multiple paths increases the likelihood that at least some DNA from that ancestor is preserved and that it’s shared with other descendants.

Two people aren’t expected to match on all of the segments of DNA that they inherit from a particular ancestor. The closer in time the relationship, the more segments they will inherit from that ancestor, which increases the chances of matching on at least one or some segments.

Clearly, pedigree collapse affects matching. It’s most pronounced in closer relationships, but it may also be the only thing that has preserved that ONE matching segment in a more distant relationship.

So, how does pedigree collapse actually affect the likelihood of matching? What can we actually expect to see? Is there a name for this and a mathematical model to assist with calculations?

I’m so glad you asked! It’s called Coefficient of Relationship.

Coefficent of Relationship

My colleague, Diahan Southard, a scientist who writes at YourDNAGuide has authored two wonderful articles about calculating the statistical effects of pedigree collapse.

You can also read another article about the methodology of calculating coefficient of relationship, here, on WaybackMachine.

Diahan is a math whiz. I’m not, so I needed to devise something “quick and dirty” for my own personal use. I promised you a “cheat sheet,” so here’s the methodology.

Two Inheritance Paths – First and Third Cousins

Let’s look at an example where two people are both first cousins and third cousins because their grandparents were also first cousins.

Let’s calculate how these two people are related. They are first cousins and also third cousins.

When calculating the effects of pedigree collapse, we calculate the first relationship normally, then calculate the second relationship and add a portion of the result.

Here’s the math.

Using the Shared cM Project for the expected amount of shared DNA for both relationships, we’ve calculated the expected range for this pedigree collapse relationship.

Tying this back to degrees of relatedness.

Let’s look at ways to do Quick Calculations using the publicly available Shared cM charts and my composite tables, here.

Using Average Shared DNA

This first methodology uses average expected amount of shared, meaning matching, DNA. Please note, I’m not necessarily expecting you to DO this now, just read to follow.

Using Average Inherited DNA

Here’s a second method using average inherited DNA, meaning people wouldn’t be expected to match on all of the inherited DNA – just a portion.

You can’t always use the shared cM charts because all relationships aren’t represented, so you may need to use the amount of expected inherited DNA instead of shared DNA amounts.

Methodology Differences

Remember, none of these methodologies are foolproof because DNA inheritance is random. You may also have additional relationships that you’re aware of.

So, what’s the easiest method? Neither, actually. I’ve found an even easier method based on these proven methodologies.

Easy-Peasy Pedigree Collapse Shortcut Range Calculation in 4 Steps

Now that you understand the science and reasoning behind all of this, you can choose from multiple calculation methodologies after drawing a picture of the relevant tree.

You’re probably wondering, “What’s the easiest way to do this?”

These quick calculation methods are the easiest to work with for non-scientists and non-math whizzes. These are the calculations I use because, taking into account random recombination, you can’t do any better than get close.
Also, remember, if you’re dealing with double relationships, meaning double first cousins, you’ll need to take that into consideration, too.
If endogamy is involved, your matches will be higher yet, and you should use the highest calculations below because you need to be on the highest end of the range – and that may still not be high enough.

In these Easy-Peasy calculations, you calculate for the lowest, then the highest, and that’s your range. Please note that these are options, and truly, one size does not fit all.

For the lowest end of the range, simply use the average of the highest relationship. In this case, that would be 1C, which is 866 cM. Remember that you may not share DNA with third cousins. 10% of third cousins don’t share any DNA, and 50% of fourth cousins don’t.
For the highest end of the range, find the second relationship in the Shared cM chart, divide the average by half, and add to the value from the closest relationship. In this case, half of the 3C value of 76 is 38.
Add 38 to 866 for the highest end of the range of 904.
If there’s yet another path to ANY shared ancestor, add half that amount too to calculate the high end of the range – unless it’s 4C or more distant, then don’t add anything.

You can see that this easy-peasy range calculation for pedigree collapse compares very well to the more complex but still easy calculations.

Easy-peasy calculation: 866-904
Other calculation methods: 850-903
For this same relationship combination, Diahan’s statistical calculation was 850 cM.

Back to Genealogy

What’s the short story about how pedigree collapse affects genealogy?

Essentially, in close generations, meaning within a few generations of two first cousins marrying, descendants can expect to inherit and share significantly more DNA of the common ancestors, but not double the amount. As we move further away from those marriages in time, the effect becomes less pronounced and more difficult to detect. You can see that effect when calculating multiple paths where at the fourth cousin level, or more distant, those cousins have a 50% or greater possibility of not sharing DNA segments.

Of course, with multiple paths to the same ancestor, your chances of inheriting at least some segments from the common ancestor are increased because their DNA descends through multiple paths.

Today, close marriages are much less common and have been for several generations in many cultures, so we see fewer instances where pedigree collapse makes a significant difference.

Within a population or group of people, if pedigree collapse becomes common, meaning that there are multiple paths leading back to common ancestors, like our three-path example, DNA segments from the common ancestors are found among many people. Significant pedigree collapse becomes endogamy, especially if marriage outside of the group is difficult, impossible, or discouraged.

Normally, pedigree collapse is not recorded in actual records. It’s left to genealogists to discover those connections.

The exception, of course, is those wonderful Catholic parish records where the priest granted dispensations. Sometimes, that’s our only hint to earlier genealogy. In the case of the marriage of Marie-Josesphe LePrince to Jacques Forest, the priest wrote “dispense 3-3 consanguinity,” which tells us that they shared great-grandparents. It also tells us that their grandparents were siblings, that the bride and groom were second cousins, and that their children and descendants inherited an extra dose of DNA from their common great-grandparents.

How does that affect me today? Given that I’m their seventh-generation descendant – probably not at all. Of course, they are Acadian, and the Acadians are highly endogamous, which means I match many Acadians because all Acadians share the DNA of just a few founders, making it almost impossible to track segments to any particular ancestor. If it weren’t for endogamy, I would probably match few, if any, of their descendants.

Now, when you see those Catholic church dispensations or otherwise discover pedigree collapse, you can be really excited, because you understand the effects of pedigree collapse and how to calculate resulting matches! You might, just might, have retained a DNA segment from those ancestors because you inherited segments through multiple paths – increasing the probability that one survived.

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23andMe: DNA Relatives, Connections, Event History Report and Other Security Tools

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Roberta Estes

A few days ago, I suggested a pause strategy while you ponder whether or not you wanted to delete your DNA file in light of the recent data exposure at 23andMe. I need to revise this with additional information today.

First and foremost, disabling DNA Relatives does NOT remove all matching. You need to remove Connections separately.

Secondarily, there’s a report at 23andMe for you to order to determine whether your account may have been individually compromised. I’ve described how to find it and use the information in the report.

This article includes several sections with important information about how these intertwined features at 23andMe work and instructions to protect yourself.

An update on the breach situation with informational links
Customer notifications
Confusion regarding types of sharing – DNA Relatives vs Connections
Explaining the difference between DNA Relatives and Connections
Step-by-step instructions for removing Connections – disabling DNA Relatives doesn’t accomplish this or stop matching/linkage to Connections
Who sees what, when?
DNA Relatives and Connections comparison chart
Account Event History – how to determine when your account was signed into, from where, what they (or you) did, and when
Deletion instructions and caveats
Summary

Update on Breach Information

I’m not going to post anything from the hacker(s) – but please, in an abundance of caution, presume your data is now available publicly or will be when the hacker sells the balance of the accounts they have and act accordingly.

The hacker has posted millions of accounts already, and I know people who have found themselves in the “sample” download provided by the hacker to convince people that the breach and resulting data is for real. If you really want to see this for yourself, the hacker, Golem, is very active at BreachForums, under Leaks, 23andMe – but I DO NOT recommend hanging out there. I reached out to colleagues who work with security and breach monitoring services. I am not poking around myself.

This 23andMe customer information first appeared in August, not October, when a hacker by a different name on Hydra posted images of the accounts of both Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe and her former husband, CEO of Google. The hacker said that the information was obtained through an API provided by 23andMe to pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, the hacker said they had already sold all of that initial data to “an individual in Iran.” You can read about this here.

Furthermore, if what the hacker or hackers say is accurate, this situation is far more serious than a password recycling issue. I don’t want to speculate because I can’t verify, although many people have written to me to say two things:

They were seeing leaked customer information weeks earlier
They did use a unique password at 23andMe

Here are four additional articles that I suggest reading to understand the scope of the situation and why there’s so much uncertainty:

One of my blog readers asked why anyone would want to do this. Of course, there can be many or even multiple motivations, but based on some of the commentary, it appears that Jewish people were targeted and compiled identifying data sold to Iran who backs Hamas. If you’re a Jewish person, anyplace in the world, you have to be extremely concerned especially since this test identifies your closest relatives and (if provided) the location where you live.

Both 23andMe and Ancestry display your current location if provided and selected. I NEVER recommend doing that under any circumstances. Of course, if the hacker gained access to individual accounts as reported and you entered that information, even if you didn’t choose to share it, they have it anyway.

Customer Notification

Please note that so far, the only notifications received by 23andMe customers say that their information was revealed through DNA relatives, meaning that at least one of their matches’ accounts was compromised. No one, to my knowledge, has received a notification that their own account has been directly compromised. Perhaps 23andMe doesn’t know whose accounts were compromised yet.

Near the end of this article, I’ll show you how to obtain a list of all the activity that has taken place on your 23andMe account so you can see if there are logins from locations not your own or other suspicious activity.

According to the original announcements from 23andMe and others, the data exposure was a result of two things:

Direct access to accounts due to reused passwords allowing the hacker to aggregate data and sign in as the user. You can see if your email address has been found in a data breach at the site, haveibeen pwned.com. I know this list is incomplete, though, because I’ve been notified by letter by other companies not listed here.
DNA Relatives information shows DNA matches, segments, and your matches’ potential relationships to each other along with their shared data, permitting triangulation.

The more I read about this from credible sources, combined with how 23andMe has handled this situation, the more “uncomfortable” I become.

Before 23andMe even straightened this mess out, this week, they introduced a new “Total Health” subscription for the low price of $99 PER MONTH. Seriously. Billed as one payment of $1,188 per year. To me, this smacks of a company desperate for money.

How do we even begin to place any confidence in this service, given what has already been exposed and the unanswered questions? Especially given that for weeks, 23andMe dismissively replied to customers who informed them of the issue that their systems had not been accessed in an unauthorized manner. Not to mention, this announcement is entirely tone-deaf as we struggle to deal with what has already been exposed one way or another.

In response to this, if you still want to maintain your existing account at 23andMe, I have help for you. If you want to delete it, I’ve provided instructions for that too.

Questions and Challenges

I discovered that DNA Relatives and Connections don’t work in exactly the way I believed they did, and it’s very confusing. Nothing, not one thing that 23andme has provided has addressed exactly what information has been exposed or what customers can do other than change their password and add 2FA.

Was the breach only DNA Relatives, or was it Connections, too?
Connections is essentially a subset of DNA Relatives plus potentially some unrelated people.
Not everyone has DNA Relatives enabled, but if not, Connections still exposes/exposed you if your account was individually breached.
23andMe only mentioned DNA Relatives, so you may think you’re in the clear if you don’t have DNA Relatives enabled. That’s inaccurate if you have any Connections and your account was individually breached.
If the hacker did sign on to your account, Connections are equally vulnerable.
The hacker could enable DNA Relatives without your knowledge to create a more lucrative fishing environment. I’ve provided instructions for how to determine if this might have happened.

Disabling DNA Relatives is not enough.

23andMe Sharing Options Are Confusing

I first reported the breach here and said in my article, here, that a pause strategy would be to stop sharing in DNA Relatives, which would effectively provide you with time to make a decision.

I knew that DNA Relatives did not unilaterally disable Connections, but I did NOT realize how much information your Connections can see.

Over the years, 23andMe has revised how their sharing works. I remember when DNA Relatives opt-in and opt-out was added in 2014. It was extremely confusing then and still is.

DNA Relatives and Connections are confusing individually and together. I could not find any feature comparison or side-by-side table for each tool, either individually, compared to each other, or with both enabled.

Because of this confusion, what we need right now is a one-button invisibility cloak that we can click to JUST STOP being visible to everyone until we reverse the invisibility cloak by opting in again – without losing anything or being penalized.

That’s what most people think happens when you stop sharing through DNA Relatives, but it’s not.

There is no invisibility cloak at 23andMe like there is at other vendors.

No Invisibility Cloak

I spent a considerable amount of time over the past few days trying to figure out the differences between DNA Relatives and Connections.

Believe it or not, that information was almost impossible to find, as it was scattered piecemeal across several places.

Let me step you through where to find it, and then compile an easy reference.

If you sign on to your account, you can see on the left-hand side that you have several selections under DNA Relatives.

Under Connections, you have the statuses of Connected, Pending, and Not Connected.

If you mouse over Connections, you see a general description.

I have two separate tests at 23andMe, and I have DNA Relatives enabled on one of the tests and disabled on the other, so I can see the differences when compared to the same people.

I have 1803 DNA Relatives, meaning matches, but the connections option told me that 348 were also Connections.

Why Do I Have 348 Connections?

Remember that 23andMe limits your matches to 1500, and the lowest matches roll off your match list without a subscription, which was only introduced in the last year or so. The subscription only allows 5,000 matches before the matches roll off your match list.

The only way to prevent matches from rolling off your list was/is to “Connect” with them, either through DNA relatives or initiating messaging. So, for years, genealogists sent a connection request to every match they had, beginning with the smallest first, in order to preserve matches that would otherwise be gone. That’s why I have 1803 matches and not just 1500 like I do on the second account where I have not established “Connections.”

Given my number of matches at the other DNA testing companies, I would likely have well over 20,000 matches, so preserving as much as possible was important to genealogists.

Understanding Connections

I switched to a different account that I manage that opted out of DNA matching a decade ago, but has more Connections than I do with many of the same people that I match.

You can view your DNA Connections by clicking on Family & Friends and then on Your Connections.

As you can see on the left, you can either share “Ancestry” with these Connections, which means typical genealogy info, or “Health + Ancestry.” Relevant to the breach, your Ancestry Composition (ethnicity) results as compared to your Connections (and DNA Relatives) are shown.

You can invite anyone to connect with you, including people on your match list or anyone else you know who has tested. In other words, your spouse or a cousin whom you DON’T MATCH.

Here’s an example of a cousin by marriage who I’ve known for years. We connected even though we don’t match and are only related by marriage.

Some Connection invitations that you receive or send are for Ancestry only, and other invitations are for BOTH Ancestry and Health.

Melissa sent me a combined request for both Ancestry and Health.

Remember that the focus of 23andMe has always been medicine, big pharma and health. Unfortunately, 23andMe PRECHECKS to accept the Health sharing option when you’ve been invited to share Health. It’s easy to miss, so UNCHECK Health if you don’t want to share YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION. The only people I’ve ever shared Health with are my immediate family members.

What’s Different?

I wanted to know what information was different about someone you’re NOT connected with and someone you’re connected with.

One of my DNA matches, Gwen, requested a Connection. Here’s the information I can see with Gwen before her Connection request.

I verified that this information is accurate by comparing Connections requests with a family member who is opted into DNA Relatives, one who is not, and also with my research-buddy cousin who is a Connection but not a match.

Any one person can potentially be:

A DNA Relative and not a Connection
A Connection and not a DNA Relative
A Connection but not participating in DNA Relatives even though they are a match

Today, the information a Connection and a DNA Relative can see since 23andMe disabled some DNA Relatives features seems identical.

Gwen’s profile card shows her name, location where she lives, and year of birth, if provided and selected for display. She obviously did not allow her birth year to be displayed, but she did allow the city/state where she lives.

23andMe estimates how I may be related to Gwen and how much DNA we share..

Gwen’s family background, which I’ve blurred. I have removed my information as I ponder whether to delete my account or not.

Ancestry Composition (ethnicity) of both people. Note that even if DNA Relatives is not enabled, either person’s account can view the shared ethnicity of both accounts.

Amounts of Neanderthal Ancestry.

How Sharing Works

23andMe discussed sharing, but differentiating between DNA Relatives and Connections is unclear.

Based on my comparison and their descriptions, I think I’ve figured out the differences. Let’s begin with their description of how sharing works.

Here, they describe part of what Connections shows.

At this point, the features of DNA Relatives that were available IN ADDITION to what could be viewed in Connections have been disabled due to the breach.

The next image is part of the Connections section, followed by DNA Relatives,

I was surprised that Shared DNA was displayed using Connections alone, before 23andMe (possibly temporarily) disabled this functionality in response to the breach. I would have presumed that if you disabled DNA Relatives, your DNA would NOT have been shown to your DNA relatives.

DNA Relatives was necessary for advanced features, including viewing relationships between your matches, meaning you and two other people, and also between your matches and each other. That means you could compare them to each other.

That feature selection is now gone as well. For the record, this graphic was out of date anyway, but now it doesn’t matter.

Connections DOES have access to the tree calculated by 23andMe but (apparently) only for people you are connected with unless you have DNA Relatives enabled. Please note that all accounts managed by one person appear to be connected to each other, although that might not be universal. I manage four kits, and all of them are shown as connections to each other.

Considerations provided by 23andMe

Here’s what they don’t say.

Disabling Your DNA Relatives Option does NOT Change Connections

This is very important considering how much information Connections can view:

Disabling DNA Relatives does NOT disable sharing. You can disable DNA Relatives across the board with one setting, but you CANNOT do that with Connections.
Each Connection must be deleted individually.

After you disable DNA Relatives, as I described in this article, under the heading, “Opting Out of DNA Relatives” you need to additionally remove each Connection if you genuinely don’t want to be seen by other people as a match. If you DO want to be seen as a match, then don’t disable DNA Relatives.

DNA Relatives will eliminate new matches from automatically occurring but won’t remove anyone you’ve previously added as a Connection.

To view and edit your connections, select “Your Connections” under “Family and Friends.”

For each Connection, click on the gear, then select which type of sharing to remove.

Please note that you may have to refresh the page to reload Connections, as there is no “load more” button, until you see the message, “You aren’t connected with anyone yet.”

Connections Versus DNA Relatives Chart

If you’ve had a hard time keeping this straight, me too. I created a chart that lists each feature and if it’s present in DNA Relatives, Connections, or both.

Feature	Connections Only	DNA Relatives	Comment
Profile	Yes	Yes
Current Location, Year of Birth, Genetic Sex	Yes	Yes	If provided and selected for display
Additional info about yourself	Yes	Yes	If provided
Prevents Rolling Off Match List at Threshold	Yes	No	Only Connections or people you’ve initiated contact with are retained
Matches	Yes, only Connections	Yes
Non-Relatives	Can send an invitation to people you’re not biologically related to meaning not on your match list	No, only DNA matches
Ancestry	Yes	Yes, plus shared matches and additional information	If selected
Health	If selected	If selected
Genetic Relationship	Yes	Yes	Estimated
Shared DNA Percent	Yes	Yes
Genetic Constructed Family Tree	Connections only	Yes all	To about 4^th generation shared ancestors
Family Background – birth places of grandparents	Yes	Yes
Other ancestors’ birthplace	Yes	Yes
External Family Tree Link	Yes	Yes	If provided
Ancestry Composition (ethnicity)	Yes	Yes
Shared ethnicity	Yes	Yes
Maternal, Paternal Haplogroups	Yes	Yes	Base to mid-level
Neanderthal Ancestry	Yes	Yes
Matching segments	Shown in 23andMe documentation, currently disabled	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Chromosome browser	Not shown in 23andMe documentation	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Shared matches	No	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Triangulation	No	Was changed recently to be more difficult, now disabled	Disabled due to breach
Shared Matches compared to each other’s tests	No	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Shared Matches relationships to each other	No	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Download Matches	I don’t think so, but I can’t positively confirm	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Download Segment information	No	Yes, currently disabled	Disabled due to breach
Download Raw data file (Your own)	Yes	Yes

Now that you know what can be seen and done and by whom, let’s take a look at how your account has been accessed.

Account Event History – Who Signed In To Your Account?

There’s a little-known feature at 23andMe that you can utilize to view the locations of sign-ins to your account and what was done, including changes and file download requests.

Navigate to settings.

Scroll down to “23andMe Data,” then click on View.

Scroll to profile data, click on “Account Event History,” then “Request Download.” 23andMe says it may take several days, but mine was ready the following day. You’ll receive a link to sign in and download a spreadsheet. Click on the blue “Account Event History” to download the report.

At the top, you’ll see column names. Please note that I added the Location column to record the results of the “Client IP Addr” lookup.

The “Client IP Addr” field is a record of where the login was initiated from. It’s your electronic address, or more specifically, the address of your internet provider, and it may not be the exact town where you live, but someplace close. I’ve blurred mine, but not where failed logins originated.

I use this site or this site to identify IP address sources.

As you can see, on May 1, 7, and 10, someone tried to sign in with my email address. It wasn’t me or the region where I live, and I was not traveling.

I was able to track these IP addresses to cities but not to individuals, of course. One tracked to a specific Internet Service Provider in that city, but nothing more.

However, that tells me that someone tried three times to use what was probably a compromised password. Thank goodness I don’t reuse passwords.

I also need to mention that you can find legitimate differences in location. For example, if you are traveling or use tools like Genetic Affairs that sign on on your behalf from their location, the IP address will reflect connection services from those locations.

You will also see interesting IP addresses, like that 127 address. That means the host computer made the change. In essence, that means that another 23andMe user removed sharing with me. That’s clearly legitimate.

I did not see any successful sign-ins from unauthorized locations. If you see a successful sign-in from an unknown location that’s not close to your home sometime in 2022 or 2023, and you weren’t traveling, nor using a location masking tool like TOR, then please notify 23andMe immediately.

The notification email I received from 23andMe was that my information had been exposed through DNA Relatives. Based on their notification in addition to the information in my report, my personal account does not appear to be individually breached.

23andMe clearly has access to this IP address information for all users, so I’m really surprised that they have not notified anyone, at least not that I know of, that their accounts have been DIRECTLY compromised – meaning NOT through DNA Relatives. Even if someone signed on using the correct password, there could/should be some pattern of sign-ons through not-normal locations for a group of customers during this time.

Of course, if the hacker was telling the truth and the breach was NOT through password reuse (stuffing,) and was through an API, neither users nor 23andMe may see unauthorized account accesses. I hope 23andMe and the professionals they have retained are able to sniff out the difference and will update their customers soon.

Regardless, I recommend requesting and reviewing this report and implementing 2FA everyplace that you can.

Deleting Your Profile

Based on your comfort level, you may decide to delete your test at 23andMe. It’s a personal decision that everyone has to make for themselves. There is no universally right or wrong decision, and I’m not recommending either way.

Before I show how to delete your data, be aware that IF YOU MANAGE MULTIPLE PROFILES, YOU NEED TO CONTACT CUSTOMER CARE UNLESS YOU WANT TO DELETE ALL THE PROFILES.

If you want to delete only your profile, you can transfer other profiles under your care to someone else.
If you manage multiple profiles and click delete, all of the profiles you manage will be deleted.

To find the delete function, click on the down arrow by your initials at top right, then on Settings.

Scroll to the very bottom.

Click on “View,” then scroll to the bottom to the Delete Data section.

23andMe provides links in this section to review, so please do. This includes information about how to transfer profiles and things to consider.

If you want to download your raw DNA file to use as an upload to other vendors, be sure to do it before you delete, because it won’t be available after. You can find instructions, here.

Remember, delete is permanent, and you’ll need to pay to retest if you change your mind.

In Summary

I hope this information has helped organize and explain things in a logical manner.

To recap, to become totally invisible, meaning no other tester can see you:

Disable DNA Relatives
Delete Connections individually and selectively

If you delete connections and those matches are lower than your 1,500^th match, they will roll off your match list unless you have a subscription, and then it’s 5,000.

Additional Tasks

Request your Account Event History and review for anomalies.
For security purposes, change your password to one you have not used elsewhere, if you have not already, and enable 2FA.

I hope that 23andMe has or will take care of whatever issues they have, post haste, and will be transparent about what actually happened. I also hope they will find a way to re-enable the tools that have been disabled. That functionality is critically important to genealogists, and without those tools and the lack of trees, there’s little reason for genealogists to test at 23andMe.

We can’t change what has already happened. Each one of us has to decide whether we want our test to remain at 23andMe and, if so, what steps we want to take to move forward successfully.

I hope this information helps you decide how to handle the situation and perhaps relieve some anxiety. Now you know how to check your activity report, understand who sees what in DNA Relatives and Connections, associated options, what needs to be done, and how to take appropriate action.

Other Vendors

You probably have observed and will continue to see other vendors implementing additional security measures, such as required 2FA, precautions against account scraping, and not accepting uploads from 23andMe in case the hacker downloaded DNA files.

These revisions may be temporary or permanent, or some of each. I’m grateful for each vendor taking steps to protect our information from unauthorized access. I’ll write more after things settle down and we better understand the new landscape.

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DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
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DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
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Genealogy Books

com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
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Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

DNA: In Search Of…Your Grandparents

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Roberta Estes

Are you searching for an unknown relative or trying to unravel and understand unexpected results? Maybe you discovered that one or both of your parents is not your biological parent. Maybe one of your siblings might be a half-sibling instead. Or maybe you suddenly have an unexpected match that looks to be an unknown close relative, possibly a half-sibling. Perhaps there’s a close match you can’t place.

Or, are you searching for the identity of your grandparent or grandparents? If you’re searching for your parent or parents, often identifying your grandparents is a necessary step to narrow the parent-candidates.

I’ve written an entire series of “In Search of Unknown Family” articles, permanently listed together, here. They will step you through the search process and help you understand how to unravel your results. If you’re new, reading these, in order, before proceeding, would be a good idea.

Prior to beginning this series, I wrote the article, Identifying Unknown Parents and Individuals Using DNA Matching which explains the process in general. In other words, how searching for unknown people, specifically unknown parents, works. I recommend that you read this article as a primer, as it takes you step-by-step through the tools and processes, in general, building a foundational understanding for the following articles.
First Steps When Your DNA Results are Ready – Sticking Your Toe in the Genealogy Water is an excellent resource for people just beginning to work with DNA results.
I introduced the “In Search of” series in the article, DNA: In Search of…New Series Launches.
In the article, DNA: In Search of…What Do You Mean I’m Not Related to My Family? – and What Comes Next? we discussed the discovery that something was amiss when you don’t match a family member that you expect to match, then how to make sure a vial or upload mix-up didn’t happen. Next, I covered the basics of the four kinds of DNA tests you’ll be able to use to solve your mystery.
In the article, In Search of…Vendor Features, Strengths, and Testing Strategies, we discussed testing goals and strategies, including testing with and uploading to multiple autosomal DNA vendors, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA testing. We reviewed the vendor’s strengths and the benefits of combining vendor information and resources.
In the article, DNA: In Search of…Signs of Endogamy, we discussed the signs of endogamy and various ways to determine if you or your recent ancestors descend from an endogamous population.
In the article, DNA: In Search of…Full and Half-Siblings we discussed how to determine if you have a sibling match, if they are a half or full sibling, and how to discern the difference.
In the article, Connect Your DNA test, and Others, to Your Tree, I explained how to optimize your DNA tests in order to take advantage of the features offered by each our primary DNA testing vendors.
In the article, How to Share DNA Results and Tree Access at Ancestry, I wrote step-by-step instructions for providing access to another person to allow them to view your DNA results, AND to share your tree – which are two different things. If you have a mystery match, and they are willing to allow you access, in essence “to drive,” you can just send them the link to this article that provides detailed instructions. Note that Ancestry has changed the user interface slightly with the rollout of their new “sides” matches.
In the article, How Am I Related to That Close Match?, we step through the process of narrowing down the possibilities of how an unexpectedly close match is related to you – and what to do next.
Not all of your ancestors contribute an X chromosome to you. In the article, X Chromosome Master Class, I’ve described how you can utilize the X chromosome when seeking to identify certain people in your tree. Conversely, an X chromosome match can effectively eliminate some relationships.

Identifying a Grandparent

I saved this “grandparents” article for later in the series because you will need the tools and techniques I’ve introduced in the earlier articles. Identifying grandparents is often the most challenging of any of the relationships we’ve covered so far. In part because each of those four individuals occupies a different place in your tree, meaning their X, Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA is carried by different, and not all, descendants. This means we sometimes have to utilize different tools and techniques.

If you’re trying to identify any of your four grandparents, females are sometimes more challenging than males.

Why?

Women don’t have a Y chromosome to test. This can be a double handicap. Female testers can’t test a Y chromosome, and maternal ancestors don’t have a Y chromosome to match.

Of course, every circumstance differs. You may not have a male to test for paternal lines either.

The maternal grandfather can be uniquely challenging, because two types of DNA, Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA matching are immediately eliminated for all testers.

While I’ve focused on the maternal grandfather in this example, these techniques can be utilized for all four grandparents as well as for parents. At the end, I’ll review other grandparent relationships and additional tools you might be able to utilize for each one.

In addition to autosomal DNA, we can also utilize mitochondrial DNA, Y-DNA and sometimes X DNA in certain situations.

Testing, Tests and Vendors

As you recall, only men have a Y chromosome (blue arrow), so only genetic males can take a Y-DNA test. Men pass their Y chromosome from father to son in each generation. Daughters don’t receive a Y chromosome.

Everyone has their mother’s mitochondrial DNA (pink arrow.) Women pass their mitochondrial DNA to both sexes of their children, but only females pass it on. In the current generation, represented by the son and daughter, above, the mother’s yellow heart-shaped mitochondrial DNA is inherited by both sexes of her children. In the current generation, males and females can both test for their mother’s mitochondrial DNA.

Of course, everyone has autosomal DNA, inherited from all of their ancestral lines through at least the 5^th or 6^th generation, and often further back in time. Autosomal DNA is divided in half in each generation, as children inherit half of each parents’ autosomal DNA (with the exception of the X chromosome, which males only inherit from their mother.)

The four major vendors, Ancestry, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage sell autosomal DNA tests, but only FamilyTreeDNA sells Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests.

Only 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA report X matching.

All vendors except Ancestry provide segment location information along with a chromosome browser.

You can read about the vendor’s strengths and weaknesses in the third article, here.

Ordering Y and Mitochondrial DNA Tests

If you’re seeking the identities of grandparents, the children and parents, above, can test for the following types of DNA in addition to autosomal:

Person in Pedigree	Y-DNA	Mitochondrial
Son	His father’s blue star	His mother’s pink heart
Daughter	None	Her mother’s pink heart
Father	His father’s blue star	His mother’s gold heart
Mother	None	Her mother’s pink heart

Note that none of the people shown above in the direct pedigree line carry the Y-DNA of the green maternal grandfather. However, if the mother has a full sibling, the green “Male Child,” he will carry the Y-DNA of the maternal grandfather. Just be sure the mother and her brother are full siblings, because otherwise, the brother’s Y-DNA may not have been inherited from your mother’s father. I wrote about full vs half sibling determination, here.

Let’s view this from a slightly different perspective. For each grandparent in the tree, which of the two testers, son or daughter, if either, carry that ancestor’s DNA of the types listed in the columns.

Ancestor in Tree	Y-DNA	Mitochondrial DNA	Autosomal DNA	X DNA
Paternal Grandfather	Son	Neither	Son, daughter	Neither
Paternal Grandmother	Has no Y chromosome	None (father has it, doesn’t pass it on to son or daughter)	Son, daughter	Daughter (son does not receive father’s X chromosome)
Maternal Grandfather	Neither	Neither	Son, daughter	Son, daughter (potentially)
Maternal Grandmother	Has no Y chromosome	Son, daughter	Son, daughter	Son, daughter (potentially)

Obtaining the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of those grandparents from their descendants will provide hints and may be instrumental in identifying the grandparent.

FamilyTreeDNA

You’ll need to order Y-DNA (males only) and mitochondrial DNA tests separately from autosomal DNA tests. They are three completely different tests.

At FamilyTreeDNA, the autosomal DNA test is called Family Finder to differentiate it from their Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests.

Their autosomal test is called Family Finder whether you order a test from FamilyTreeDNA, or upload your results to their site from another vendor (instructions here.)

I recommend ordering the Big Y-700 Y-DNA test if possible, and if not, the highest resolution Y-DNA test you can afford. The Big Y-700 is the most refined Y-DNA test available, includes multiple tools and places Big Y-700 testers on the Time Tree through the Discover tool, providing relatively precise estimates of when those men shared a common ancestor. If you’ve already purchased a lower-precision Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA, you can easily upgrade.

I wrote about using the Discover tool here. The recently added Group Time Tree draws a genetic Y-DNA tree of Big-Y testers in common projects, showing earliest known ancestors and the date of the most recent common ancestor.

You need to make sure your Family Finder, mitochondrial DNA and Y-DNA (if you’re a male) tests are ordered from the same account at FamilyTreeDNA.

You want all 3 of your tests on the same account (called a kit number) so that you can use the advanced search features that display people who match you on combinations of multiple kinds of tests. For example, if you’re a male, do your Y-DNA matches also match you on the autosomal Family Finder test, and if so, how closely? Advanced matching also provides X matching tools.

X DNA is included in autosomal tests. X DNA has a distinct matching pattern for males and females which makes it uniquely useful for genealogy. I wrote about X DNA matching here.

If you upload your autosomal results to FamilyTreeDNA from another company, you’re only uploading a raw DNA file, not the DNA itself, so FamilyTreeDNA will need to send you a swab kit to test your Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA. If you upload your autosomal DNA, simply sign in to your kit, purchase the Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA tests and they will send you a swab kit.

If you test directly at FamilyTreeDNA, you can add any test easily by simply signing in and placing an order. They will use your archived DNA from your swab sample, as long as there’s enough left and it’s of sufficient quality.

Fish In All Ponds

The first important thing to do in your grandparent search is to be sure you’re fishing in all ponds. In other words, be sure you’ve tested at all 4 vendors, or uploaded files to FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage.

When you upload files to those vendors, be sure to purchase the unlock for their advanced tools, because you’re going to utilize everything possible.

If you have relatively close matches at other vendors, ask if they will upload their files too. The upload is free. Not only will they receive additional matches, and another set of ethnicity results, their results will help you by associating your matches with specific sides of your family.

Why Order Multiple Tests Now Instead of Waiting?

I encourage testers to order their tests at the beginning of their journey, not one at a time. Each new test from a vendor takes about 6-8 weeks from the time you initially order – they send the test, you swab or spit, return it, and they process your DNA. Of course, uploading takes far less time.

If you’re adding elapsed time, two autosomal tests (Ancestry and 23andMe), two uploads (FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage,) a Y-DNA and a mitochondrial DNA test, if all purchased serially, one after the other, means you’ll be waiting about 6-8 months.

Do you want to wait 6-8 months? Can you afford to?

Part of that answer has to do with what, exactly, you’re seeking.

A Name or Information?

Are you seeking the name of a person, or are you seeking information about that person? With grandparents, you may be hoping to meet them, and time may be of the essence. Time delayed may not be able to be recovered or regained.

Most people don’t just want to put a name to the person they are seeking – they want to learn about them. You will have different matches at each company. Even after you identify the person you seek, the people you match at each company may have information about them, their photos, know about their life, family, and their ancestors. They may be able and willing to facilitate an introduction if that’s what you seek.

One cousin that I assisted discovered that his father had died just 6 weeks before he made the connection. He was heartsick.

Having data from all vendors simultaneously will allow you to compile that data and work with it together as well as separately. Using your “best” matches at each company, augmented by both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can make MUCH shorter work of this search.

Your Y-DNA, if you’re a male will give you insights into your surname line, and the Big-Y test now comes with estimates of how far in the past you share a common ancestor with other men that have taken the Big-Y test. This can be a HUGE boon to a male trying to figure out his surname line.

Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, respectively, will eliminate many people from being your mother or father, or your direct paternal or direct maternal line ancestor. Both provide insights into which population and where that population originated as well. In other words, it provides you lineage-specific information not available elsewhere.

Your Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can also provide critically important information about whether that direct line ancestor belonged to an endogamous population, and where they came from.

Strategies

You may be tempted to think that you only need to test at one vendor, or at the vendor with the largest database, but that’s not necessarily true.

Here’s a table of my closest matches at the 4 vendors.

Vendor	Closest Maternal	Closest Paternal	Comments
Ancestry	1C, 1C1R	Half 1C, 2C	I recognized both of the maternal and neither of the paternal.
23andMe	2C, 2C	1C1R, half-gr-niece	Recognized both maternal, one paternal
MyHeritage	Mother uploaded, 1C	Half-niece, half 1C	Recognized both maternal, one paternal
FamilyTreeDNA	Mother tested, 1C1R	Parent/child, half-gr-niece	Recognized all 4

To be clear, I tested my mother at FamilyTreeDNA before she passed away, but if I was an adoptee searching for my mother, that’s the first database she would be in. As her family, we were able to order the Family Finder test from her archived DNA after she had passed away. I then uploaded her DNA file to MyHeritage, but she’ll never be at either 23andMe or Ancestry because they don’t accept uploads and she clearly can’t test.

Additionally, being able to identify maternal matches by viewing shared matches with my mother separates out close matches from my paternal side.

Let’s put this another way, I stand a MUCH BETTER chance of unraveling this mystery with the combined closest matches of all 4 databases instead of the top ones from just one database.

I’m providing analysis methodologies for working with results from all of the vendors together, in case your answer is not immediately obvious. Taking multiple tests facilitates using all of these tools immediately, not months later. Solving the puzzle sooner means you may not miss valuable connection opportunities.

You may also discover that the door slams shut with some people, but another match may be unbelievably helpful. Don’t unnecessarily limit your possibilities.

Here’s the testing and upload strategy I recommend.

What	When	Ancestry	23andMe	MyHeritage	FamilyTreeDNA	GEDmatch
Order autosomal test	Initially	Yes	Yes	Upload	Upload	Upload
Order Big-Y DNA test if male	Initially				Yes
Order mitochondrial DNA test	Initially				Yes
Upload free autosomal file	From Ancestry or 23andMe			Yes	Yes	Yes
Unlock Advanced Tools	When upload file			$29	$19	$9.95 month
Includes X Matching		No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Chromosome Browser, segment location information		No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

When you upload a DNA file to a vendor site, only upload one file per site, per tester. Otherwise, multiple tests simply glom up everyone’s match list with multiple matches to the same person and can be very confusing.

One person took an autosomal test at a company that accepts uploads, forgot about it, uploaded a file from another vendor later, and immediately thought she had found her parent. She had not. She “found” herself.
Another person though she had found two sisters, but one person had uploaded their own file from two different vendors.

Multiple vendor sites reveal multiple close matches to different people which increase your opportunity to discover INFORMATION about your family, not just the identity of the person.

Match Ranges

Given that we are searching for an unknown maternal grandfather, your mother may not have had any (known) full siblings. The “best” match would be to a full or half siblings to your parents, or their descendants, depending on how old your grandparents would be.

Let’s take the “worst case” scenario, meaning there are no full siblings AND there are many possible generations between you and the people you may match.

Now, let’s look at DNAPainter’s Shared cM tool.

You’re going to be looking for someone who is either your mother’s half sibling on her father’s side, or who is a full sibling.

If your mother is adopted, it’s possible that she has or had full siblings. If your mother was born circa 1920, it’s likely that you will be matching the next generation, or two, or three.

However, if your mother was born later, you could be matching her siblings directly.

I’m going to assume half siblings for this example, because they are more difficult than full siblings.

Full sibling relationships for your mother’s siblings are listed at right. Your full aunt or uncle at top, then their descendant generations below.

At left, in red, are the half-sibling relationships and the matching amounts.

You can see that if you’re dealing with half 1C3R (half first cousin three times removed,) you may not match.

Therefore, in order to isolate matches, it’s imperative to test every relevant relative possible.

Who’s Relevant for DNA Testing?

Who is relevant to test If you’re attempting to identify your maternal grandfather?

The goal is to be able to assign matches to the most refined ancestor possible. In other words, if you can assign someone to either your grandmother’s line, or your grandfather’s line, that’s better than assigning the person to your grandparents jointly.

Always utilize the tests of the people furthest up the tree, meaning the oldest generations. Their DNA is less-diluted, meaning it has been divided fewer times. Think about who is living and might be willing to test.

You need to be able to divide your matches between your parents, and then between your grandparents on your mother’s side.

Test your parents, of course, and any of their known siblings, half or full.
If those siblings have passed away, test as many of their children as you can.
If any of your grandparents are living, test them
If BOTH of your grandparents on the same side aren’t available to test, test any, preferably all, living aunts or uncles.
If your maternal grandmother had siblings, test them or their descendants if they are deceased.
If your parents are deceased, test your aunts, uncles, full siblings and half-siblings on your mother’s side. (Personally, I’d test all half-siblings, not just maternal.)
Half-siblings are particularly valuable because there is no question which “side” your shared DNA came from. They will match people you don’t because they received part of your parent’s DNA that you did not.

Furthermore, shared matches to half-siblings unquestionably identify which parent those matches are through.

Essentially, you’re trying to account for all matches that can be assigned to your grandparents whose identities you know – leaving only people who descend from your unknown maternal grandfather.

Testing your own descendants will not aid your quest. There is no need to test them for this purpose, given that they received half of your DNA.

I wrote about why testing close relatives is important in the article Superpower: Your Aunts’ and Uncles’ DNA is Your DNA Too – Maximize Those Matches!

Create or Upload a Tree

Three of the four major vendors, plus GEDMatch, support and utilize family trees.

You’ll want to either upload or create a tree at each of the vendor sites.

You can either upload a GEDCOM file from your home computer genealogy software, or you can create a tree at one of the vendors, download it, and upload to the others. I described that process at Ancestry, here.

Goal

Your goal is to work with your highest matches first to determine how they are related to you, thereby eliminating matches to known lineages.

Assuming you’re only searching for the identity of one grandparent, it’s beneficial to have done enough of your genealogy on your three known grandparents to be able to assign matches from those lines to those sides.

Step 1 is to check each vendor for close matches that might fall into that category.

The Top 15 at Each Vendor

Your closest several autosomal matches are the most important and insightful. I begin with the top 15 autosomal results at each vendor, initially, which provides me with the best chance of meaningful close relationship discoveries.

Create a Spreadsheet or Chart

I hate to use that S word (spreadsheet), because I don’t want non-technical people to be discouraged. So, I’m going to show you how I set up a spreadsheet and you can simply create a chart or even draw this out on paper if you wish.

I’ve color-coded columns for each of my 4 grandparents. The green column is the target Maternal Grandfather whose identity I’m seeking.

I match our first example; Erik, at 417 cM. Based on various pieces of information, taken together, I’ve determined that I’m Erik’s half 1C1R. His 8 great-grandparent surnames, or the ones he has provided, indicate that I’m related to Eric on my paternal grandfather’s line.

You’ll want to record your closest matches in this fashion.

Let’s look at how to find this information and work with the tools at the individual vendors.

23andMe

Let’s start at 23andMe, because they create a potential genetic tree for you, which may or may not be accurate.

I have two separate tests at 23andMe. One is a V3 and one is a V4 test. I keep one in its pristine state, and I work with the second one. You’ll see two of “me” in the tree, and that’s why.

23andMe makes it easy to see estimated relationships, although they are not always correct. Generally, they are close, and they can be quite valuable.

Click on any image to enlarge

The maternal and paternal “sides” may not be positioned where genealogists are used to seeing them. Remember, 23andMe has no genealogy trees, so they are attempting to construct a genetic tree based on how people are related to you and to each other, with no prior knowledge. They do sometimes have issues with half-relationships, so I’d encourage you to use this tree to isolate people to the three grandparents you know.

In my case, I was able to determine the maternal and paternal sides easily based on known cousins. This is the perfect example of why it’s important to test known relatives from both sides of your family.

My paternal side, at right, in blue, was easy because I recognized my half-sister’s family, and because of known cousins who I recognized from having tested elsewhere. I’ve worked with them for years. The blue stars show people I could identify, mostly second cousins.

My maternal side is at left, in red. Normally, for genealogists, the maternal side is at right, and the paternal at left, so don’t make assumptions, and don’t let this positioning throw you.

I’m pretending I don’t know who my maternal grandfather is. I was able to identify my maternal grandmother’s side based on a known second cousin.

That leaves my target – my maternal grandfather’s line.

All of the matches to the left of the red circle would, by process of elimination, be on my maternal grandfather’s side.

The next step would be to figure out how the 5 people descending from my maternal grandfather’s line are related to each other – through which of their ancestors.

On the DNA Relatives match list, here’s what needs to be checked:

Do your matches share surnames with you or your ancestors?
Do they show surnames in common with each other?
Is there a common location?
Birth year which helps you understand their potential generation.
Did they list their grandparents’ birthplaces?
Did they provide a family tree link?
Do they also match each other using the Relatives in Common feature?
Do they triangulate, indicated by “DNA Overlap” in Relatives in Common?
Who else is on the Relatives in Common list, and what do they have in common with each other?
Looking at your Ancestry Composition compared with theirs, what are your shared populations, and are they relevant? If you are both 100% European, then shared populations aren’t useful, but if both people share the same minority ancestry, especially on the same segments, it may indeed be relevant – especially if it can’t be accounted for on the known sides of the family.

Reach out to these people and see what they know about their genealogy, if they have tested elsewhere, and if they have a genealogy tree someplace that you can view.

If they can tell you their grandparents’ names, birth and death dates and locations, you can check public sources like WikiTree, FamilySearch and Geni, or build trees for them. You can also use Newspaper resources, like Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive and the newspapers at MyHeritage.

I added the top 15 23andMe matches into the spreadsheet I created.

You’ll notice that not many people at 23andMe enter surnames. However, if you can identify individuals from your 3 known lines, you can piggyback the rest by using Relatives in Common in conjunction with the genetic tree placement.

Be sure to check all the people that are connected to the target line in your genetic tree.

You’ll want to harvest your DNA segments to paint at DNAPainter if you don’t solve this mystery with initial reviews at each vendor.

I wrote about Triangulation in Action at 23andMe, here.
I wrote several articles about using DNAPainter, here.
Instructions to download your DNA matches and their segment data can be found here. 23andMe results cannot be sorted by X chromosome matches, but you can sort the downloaded spreadsheet by X matching.

Ancestry

Let’s move to Ancestry next.

At Ancestry, you’ll want to start with your closest matches on your match list.

Ancestry classifies “Close Matches” as anyone 200 cM or greater, which probably won’t reach as far down as the matches we’ll want to include.

Some of the categories in the Shared cM Chart from DNAPainter, above, don’t work based on ages, so I’ve eliminated those. I also know, for example, that someone who could fall in the grandparent/grandchild category (blue star,) in my case, does not, so must be a different relationship.

Second cousins, who share great-grandparents, can be expected to share about 229 cM of DNA on average, or between 41 and 592 cM. First cousins share 866 cM, and half first cousins share 449 cM on average.

I have 13 close matches (over 200 cM), but I’m including my top 15 at each vendor, so I added two more. You can always go back and add more matches if necessary. Just keep in mind that the smaller the match, the greater the probability that it came from increasingly distant generations before your grandparents. Your sweet spot to identify grandparents is between 1C and 2C.

I need to divide my close matches into 4 groups, each one equating to a grandparent. Record this on your spreadsheet.

You can group your matches at Ancestry using colored dots, which means you can sort by those groups.

You can also select a “side” for a match by clicking on “Yes” under the question, “Do you recognize them?”

Initially, you want to determine if this person is related to you on your mother’s or father side, and hopefully, through which grandparent.

Recently, Ancestry added a feature called SideView which allows testers to indicate, based on ethnicity, which side is “parent 1” and which side is “parent 2.” I wrote about that, here.

Make your selection, assuming you can tell which “side” of you descends from which parent based on ethnicity and/or shared matches. How you label “parent 1,” meaning either maternal or paternal, determines how Ancestry assigns your matches, when possible.

Using these tools, which may not be completely accurate, plus shared matches with people you can identify, divide your matches among your three known grandparents, meaning that the people you cannot assign will be placed in the fourth “unknown” column.

On my spreadsheet, I assign all of my closest matches to one of my grandparents. Michael is my first cousin (1C) and we share both maternal grandparents, so he’s not helpful in the division because he can’t be assigned to only one grandparent.

The green maternal grandfather is who I’m attempting to identify.

There are 4 people, highlighted in yellow, who don’t fall into the other three grandparent lines, so they get added to the green column and will be my focus.

I would be inclined to continue adding matches using a process known as the Leeds Method, until I had several people in each category. Looking back at the DNAPainter cM chart, at this point, we don’t have anyone below 200 cM and the matches we need might be below that threshold. The more matches you have to work with, the better.

At Ancestry, you cannot download your matches into a spreadsheet, nor can you work with other clustering tools such as Genetic Affairs, so you’ll have to build out your spreadsheet manually.

Check for the same types of information that I reviewed at 23andMe:

Review trees, if your matches have them, minimally recording the surnames of their 8 great-grandparents.
Review shared matches, looking for common names in the trees in recent generations.
View shared matches with people with whom you have a “Common Ancestor” indication, which means a ThruLine. You won’t have Thrulines with your target grandparent, of course, but Thrulines will allow you to place the match in one of the other columns. I wrote about ThruLines here, here and here.
ThruLines sometimes suggests ancestors based on other people’s trees, so be EXCEEDINGLY careful with potential ancestor suggestions. That’s not to say you should discount those suggestions. Just treat them as tree hints that may have been copy/pasted hundreds of times, because that’s what they are.

I make notes on each match so I can easily see the connection by scanning without opening the match.

Now, I have a total of 30 entries on my spreadsheet, 15 from 23and Me and 15 from Ancestry.

Why Not Use Autosclusters?

Even with vendors who allow or provide cluster tools, I don’t use an automated autocluster tool at this point. Autocluster tools often omit your closest matches because your closest matches would be in nearly half of all your clusters, which isn’t exactly informative. However, for this purpose, those are the very matches we need to evaluate.

After identifying groups of people that represent the missing grandparent, using our spreadsheet methodology, autoclusters could be useful to identify common surnames and even to compare the trees of our matches using AutoTree, AutoPedigree and AutoKinship. AutoClusters cannot be utilized at Ancestry, but is available through MyHeritage and at GEDmatch, or through Genetic Affairs for 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA.

Next, let’s move to FamilyTreeDNA.

FamilyTreeDNA

FamilyTreeDNA is the only vendor that provides Family Matching, also known as “bucketing.” FamilyTreeDNA assigns your matches to either a paternal or maternal bucket, or both, based on triangulated matches with someone you’ve linked to a profile in your tree.

The key to Family Matching is to link known Family Finder matches to their profile cards in your tree.

Clicking on the Family Tree link at the top of your personal page allows you to link your matches to the profile cards of your matches.

FamilyTreeDNA utilizes these linked matches to assign those people, and matches who match you and those people, both, on at least one common segment, to the maternal or paternal tabs on your match list.

Always link as many known people as possible (red stars) which will result in more matches being bucketed and assigned to parents’ sides for you, even if neither parent is available to test.

I wrote about Triangulation in Action at FamilyTreeDNA, here.

You can see at the top of my match list that I have a total of 8000 matches of which 3422 are paternal, 1517 are maternal and 3 match on both sides. Full siblings, their (and my) children and their descendants will always match on both sides. People with endogamy across both parents may have several matches on both sides.

If your relevant parent has tested, always work from their test.

Because we are searching for the maternal grandfather, in this case, we can ignore all tests that are bucketed as paternal matches.

Given that we are searching for my maternal grandfather, I probably have not been able to link as many maternal matches, other than possibly ones from my maternal grandmother. This means that the maternal grandfather’s matches are not bucketed because there are no identified matches to link on that side of my tree.

If you sort by maternal and paternal tabs, you’ll miss people who aren’t bucketed, meaning they have no maternal or paternal icon, so I recommend simply scanning down the list and processing maternal matches and non-bucketed matches.

By being able to confidently ignore paternally bucketed matches and only processing maternal and non-assigned matches, this is equivalent to processing the first 48 total matches. If I were to only look at the first 15 matches, 12 were paternal and only 3 are maternal.

Using bucketing at FamilyTreeDNA is very efficient and saves a lot of work.

Omitting paternal matches also means we are including smaller matches which could potentially be from common ancestors further back in the tree. Or, they could be younger testers. Or simply smaller by the randomness of recombination.

FamilyTreeDNA is a goldmine, with 16 of 20 maternal matches being from the unknown maternal grandfather.

Next, let’s see what’s waiting at MyHeritage.

MyHeritage

MyHeritage is particularly useful if your lineage happens to be from Europe. Of course, if you’re searching for an unknown person, you probably have no idea where they or their ancestors are from. Two of my best matches first appeared at MyHeritage.

Of course, your matches with people who descend from your unknown maternal grandfather won’t have any Theories of Family Relativity, as that tool is based on BOTH a DNA match plus a tree or document match. However, Theories is wonderful to group your matches to your other three grandparents.

MyHeritage provides a great deal of information for each match, including common surnames with your tree. If you recognize the surnames (and shared matches) as paternal or maternal, then you can assign the match. However, the matches you’re most interested in are the highest matches without any surnames in common with you – which likely point to the missing maternal grandfather.

However, those people may, and probably do, have surnames in common with each other.

Of the matches who aren’t attributed to the other three grandparents, the name Ferverda arises again and again. So does Miller, which suggests the grandparent or great-grandparent couple may well be Ferverda/Miller.

Let’s continue working through the process with our spreadsheet and see what we can discover about those surnames.

Our 60 Results

Of the 60 total results, 15 from each vendor, a total of 24 cannot be assigned to other columns through bucketing or shared matches, so are associated with the maternal grandfather. Of course, Michael who descends from both of my maternal grandparents won’t be helpful initially.

Cheryl, Donald and Michael are duplicates at different vendors, but the rest are not.

Of the relevant matches, the majority, 12 are from FamilyTreeDNA, four each are from Ancestry and MyHeritage, and three are from 23andMe.

Of the names provided in the surname fields of matches, in matches’ trees in the first few generations, and the testers’ surnames, Ferverda is repeated 12 times, for 50% of the time. Miller is repeated 9 times, so it’s likely that either of those are the missing grandfather’s surname. Of course, if we had Y-DNA, we’d know the answer to that immediately.

Comparing trees of my matches, we find John Ferverda as the common ancestor between two different matches. John is the son of Hiram Ferverda and Eva Miller who are found in several trees.

That’s a great hint. But is this the breakthrough I need?

What’s Next?

The next step is to look for connections between the maternal grandmother, Edith Lore, who is known in our example, and a Ferverda male. He is probably one of the sons of Hiram Ferverda and Eva Miller. Do they lived in the same area? In close proximity? Do they attend the same church or school? Are they neighbors or live close to the family or some of their relatives? Does she have connections with Ferverda family members? We are narrowing in.

Some of Hiram and Eva’s sons might be able to be eliminated based on age or other factors, or at least be less likely candidates. Any of their children who had moved out of state when the child was conceived would be less likely candidates. Age would be a factor, as would opportunity.

Target testing of the Ferverda sons’ children, or the descendants of their children would (probably) be able to pinpoint which of their sons is more closely related to me (or my mother) than the rest.

In our case, indeed, John Ferverda is the son we are searching for and his descendant, Michael is the highest match on the list. Cheryl and Donald descend from John’s brother, which eliminates him as a candidate. Another tester descends from a third Ferverda son, which eliminates that son as well.

Michael, my actual first cousin with a 755 cM match at one vendor, and 822 cM at a second vendor, is shown by the MyHeritage cM Explainer with an 88% probability that he is my first cousin.

However, when I’m trying to identify the maternal grandfather, which is half of that couple, I need to focus one generation further back in time to eliminate other candidates.

The second and third closest matches are both Donald at 395 cM and Cheryl at 467 cM who also share the same Ferverda/Miller lineage and are the children of my maternal grandfather’s brother.

On the spreadsheet, I need to look at the trees of people who have both Ferverda and Miller, which brought me to both Cheryl and Donald, then Michael, which allowed me to identify John Ferverda, unquestionably, as my grandfather based on the cM match amounts.

Cheryl and Donald, who are confirmed full siblings, and my mother either have to be first cousins, or half siblings. Their match with mother is NOT in the half-sibling range for one sibling, and on the lower edge with the other. Mother also matches Michael as a nephew, not more distantly as she would if he were a first cousin once removed (1C1R) instead of a nephew.

Evaluating these matches combined confirms that my maternal grandfather is indeed John Ferverda.

What About X DNA?

The X chromosome has a unique inheritance path which is sometimes helpful in this circumstance, especially to males.

Women inherit an X chromosome from both parents, but males inherit an X chromosome from ONLY their mother. A male inherits a Y chromosome from his father which is what makes him male. Women inherit two X chromosomes, one from each parent, and no Y, which is what makes them female.

Therefore, if you are a male and are struggling with which side of your tree matches are associated with, the X chromosome may be of help.

Your mother passed her X chromosome to you, which could be:

Her entire maternal X, meaning your maternal grandmother’s X chromosome
Her entire paternal X, meaning your maternal grandfather’s X chromosome (which descends from his mother)
Some combination of your maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather’s chromosomes

One thing we know positively is that a male’s X matches are ALWAYS from their maternal side only, so that should help when dividing a male’s matches maternally or paternally. Note – be aware of potential pedigree collapse, endogamy and identical-by-chance matches if it looks like a male has a X match on his father’s side.

Unfortunately, the X chromosome cannot assist females in the same way, because females inherit an X from both parents. Therefore, they can match people in the same was as a male, but also in additional ways.

Females will match their paternal grandmother on her entire X chromosome, and will match one or both of their maternal grandparents on the X chromosome.
Females will NEVER match their paternal grandfather’s X chromosome because their father did not inherit an X chromosome from his father.
Males will match one or both of their maternal grandparents on their X chromosome.
Males will NEVER match their paternal grandparents, because males do not receive an X chromosome from their father.

The usefulness of X DNA matching depends on the inheritance path of both the tester AND their match.

When Can Y-DNA or Mitochondrial DNA Help with Grandparent Identification?

If you recall, I selected the maternal grandfather as the person to seek because no tester carries either the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of their maternal grandfather. In other words, this was the most difficult identification, meaning that any of the other three grandparents would be, or at least could be, easier with the benefit of Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA testing.

In addition to matching, both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA will provide testers with location origins, both continental and often much more specific locations based on where other testers and matches are from.

Y-DNA often provides a surname.

Let’s see how these tests, matches and results can assist us.

Paternal grandfather – If I was a male descended from John Ferverda paternally, I could have tested both my autosomal DNA PLUS my Y-DNA, which would have immediately revealed the Ferverda surname via Y-DNA. Two Ferverda men are shown in the Ferverda surname DNA project, above.

That revelation would have confirmed the Ferverda surname when combined with the high frequency of Ferverda found among autosomal matches on the spreadsheet.

Maternal grandmother – If we were searching for a maternal grandmother, both the male and female sibling testers (as shown in the pedigree chart) would have her mitochondrial DNA which could provide matches to relevant descendants. Mitochondrial DNA at both FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe could also eliminate anyone who does not match on a common haplogroup, when comparing 23andMe results to 23andMe results, and FamilyTreeDNA to FamilyTreeDNA results at the same level.

At 23andMe, only base level haplogroups are provided, but they are enough to rule out a direct matrilineal line ancestor.

At FamilyTreeDNA, the earlier HVR1 and HVR2 tests provide base level haplogroups, while full sequence testing provides granular, specific haplogroups. Full sequence is the recommended testing level.

Paternal grandmother – If we were searching for a paternal grandmother, testers would, of course, need either their father to test his mitochondrial DNA, or for one of his siblings to test which could be used in the same way as described for maternal grandmother matching.

Summary

Successfully identifying a grandparent is dependent on many factors. Before you make that identification, it’s very difficult to know which are more or less important.

For example, if the grandparent is from a part of the world with few testers, you will have far fewer matches, potentially, than other lines from more highly tested regions. In my case, two of my four grandparents’ families, including Ferverda, immigrated in the 1850s, so they had fewer matches than families that have been producing large families in the US for generations.

Endogamy may be a factor.

Family size in past and current generations may be a factor.

Simple luck may be a factor.

Therefore, it’s always wise to test your DNA, and that of your parents and close relatives if possible, and upload to all of the autosomal databases. Then construct an analysis plan based on:

How you descend from the grandparent in question, meaning do you carry their X DNA, Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA.
Who else is available to test their autosomal DNA to assist with shared matches and the process of elimination.
Who else is available to test for Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA of the ancestor in question.

If you don’t find the answer initially, schedule a revisit of your matches periodically and update your spreadsheet. Sometimes DNA and genealogy is a waiting same.

Just remember, luck always favors the prepared!

Resources

You may find the following resource articles beneficial in addition to the links provided throughout this article.

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You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

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DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

How to Share DNA Results and Tree Access at Ancestry

Posted on October 12, 2022 by Roberta Estes

There are two types of access you may want to share with other users at Ancestry, and specific times when you’ll want to do each.

If you have set your privacy selections to allow DNA matching, and tree sharing, your DNA matches will have access to that information. If not, they won’t.

Let’s check.

Click the down arrow to the right of your signon page, then Account Settings.

Click on DNA.

Then, click on the little right arrow waaaaayyyy over there.

Scroll down until you see Tree Link, and be sure your test is linked to yourself in your tree.

Privacy

Next, the Privacy section displays your selections in effect for both matching and your ethnicity estimates. Click on the little down arrow labeled “Change” to view other options.

If you do NOT have matching enabled, you won’t see matches and they won’t see you.

Granting DNA Sharing Access

If you don’t match with someone, they won’t be able to see whether you’ve tested your DNA or not.

You can still share access to your DNA, even if you don’t match.
If you do match, and you’re collaborating with someone, you can share more with them, in essence, letting them “drive.”

Here’s how.

Next, click on Sharing Preferences.

You’ll click the down arrow to see who you’ve shared your DNA results with. These people may or may not be your DNA matches. For example, there are a few people that I’ve collaborated with for years that I’ve shared my DNA results with because I’m really, really HOPING they will make a breakthrough for both of us.

Plus, not to be morbid, but you just never know when you’ll be meeting the ancestors and I want my DNA to go on working for my genealogy partners and family members after I’m no longer doing the work myself. That’s also why I write my 52 Ancestors stories, but I digress.

You might be wondering what kind of information other people could be looking for. Let me give you an immediate example. Even though we don’t personally match, my cousin Greg has been looking for people that he matches, and I match too, that he knows descend from our common ancestor, Peter Johnson.

Any tests you own are listed first here, along with anyone you’ve granted access to your DNA results.

If you click on “Add a person,” you can add someone else to your share list.

You always get to select the level of access people you share with have.

If your cousin George tested for you, has no interest himself, you’ll want to ask him to grant you the ability to manage his results. Just understand that manage means just that – entirely.

Typically, I grant view because they can see everything I can see, but they can’t change things.

Sharing DNA does NOT mean you’re automatically sharing your tree.

Sharing Trees

Sharing trees is important for three reasons.

DNA matches
For people who don’t match your DNA but are researching the same ancestors and find your tree through hints or ancestor searches
People you specifically want to provide access to your tree

One of my cousins kindly shared his DNA results with me, but he did not share his tree and now I can no longer get in touch with him. Unfortunately, he’s not well, so it’s unlikely that I will ever be able to contact him.

Let’s look at Tree management, sharing and invitations.

Your Tree Privacy Settings

Go back to Account Settings and select “Trees.”

Next, you’ll see your trees and trees that others have shared with you.

Select the tree you wish to view, share, or work with.

Then, select Privacy Settings at the top of the page.

You can review your tree privacy settings. As you can see, mine is public. I firmly believe that a rising tide lifts all ships. I realize that this is a controversial topic, but I share my work freely and hope others will as well. I’m providing quality breadcrumbs. At least my research and information is available among the copy/paste misinformation abominations.

My cousin who shared his DNA with me has a private tree, and even though I can see how he matches people, I cannot view their common ancestors because his tree is private and he didn’t realize he needed to grant me separate access to his tree in addition to his DNA results.

Furthermore, if your tree is private, your DNA matches can’t view your tree and the DNA match has limited utility without tree access.

Invite People to Your Tree

My tree is public, so it’s available for viewing in searches and by DNA matches. However, I still need to grant specific access to people to directly access my tree without them having to search around to find my tree in their ancestor search hints and matches.

Click on “Invitations.”

You’ll be able to see who you’ve granted access to, their Role, and if they can see living people.

To invite someone to your tree from here, click on “Invite People.”

Don’t forget to click “save” at the bottom of the page.

You can generate a one-time link for the person you’re inviting, meaning the link can only be used by one person, or have Ancestry send them an email invite or use their Ancestry Username.

An Easier Tree Invite Location

There is no easier way to invite people to view your DNA results, but there is an easier way to share your tree.

On your main Ancestry page, click on Trees, then on the down arrow by the name of the tree you wish to share. Select “Invite” which will take you to the same Invite page as above.

Now is a good time to review your settings and be sure they are the most beneficial to your genealogy goals.

Furthermore, you’re going to need this article for my next “In Search of…” article in a day or so.

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Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books