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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: DavidG02 on Monday 16 April 18 04:26 BST (UK)
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Anyone use it?
I was stumbling around chasing families and logged into my MyHeritage account, I dont use it as much as other sites but every now and then it comes up trumps.
They are offering a DNA download facility from any other site as long as you have the file in your computer. I tested with FTDNA and have been happy enough that I hadnt considered other places to upload (gedmatch the only other place)
I have to say the MyHeritage site is more user friendly for DNA matches. Not as tight as FTDNA ie my 2-4th are mostly listed as 3rd-5th or more. Minor thing.
But for just quickly checking links it is easier to use ie scrolling down and click on a link it gives you 'other connected matches' as well as a family tree (if loaded) and an ethnicity match ie you and your match have a high concentration here. Mostly the UK :D but its nice
Interestingly I have 3500 'matches' on MyHeritage and 2000 on FTDNA. That could be anything from a numbers game to how each site determines a match
Like anything I shall take a little from here and a little from there.
Your experiences?
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I signed up a couple of weeks ago hoping to download my FTDNA FamilyFinder results and get some new matches, but I got a message saying that I was unable to do so as they don't have that facililty as yet..
I will check to see if I can find the exact wording...
Added: I think it might be "user error". I am trying the process again.
Added: I have uploaded my data and am now getting the message "In progress - results expected in 1-2 days". I went through this same process weeks ago. ::) I'll check back in a couple of days.
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I find myheritageDNA quite good, as I said recently. However, the main drawback as ever is the lack of trees, worse at myheritage than Ancestry.
Their tools are better than most sites, Gedmatch excepted, and are updated regularly.
At ftDNA I have only 145 matches, as I did not test there, more distant cousins aren't included with DNA upload. At myheritage I have 1514 matches, at ancestry many thousands, over 11,000 at last count.
Relatively few positive matches at anywhere other than ancestry, mainly due to lack of trees. Unless the match is very close, I don't contact someone to ask what possible surnames we might share.
Quick tip for myheritage - with a free account you are only supposed to have 250 people in your tree. Upload a gedcom, and you avoid the limit.
Regards Margaret
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I find myheritageDNA quite good, as I said recently. However, the main drawback as ever is the lack of trees, worse at myheritage than Ancestry.
Quick tip for myheritage - with a free account you are only supposed to have 250 people in your tree. Upload a gedcom, and you avoid the limit.
Regards Margaret
Thank you for that tip Margaret
I cant compare Ancestry trees and myheritage for trees but there are trees to be had. Some good some bad . I think like other sites there is a crossover of 'ethnicity finders' and 'family finders'
Those people that dont have trees dont bother me , they dont get as much attention as those that do because I figure I can get the information elsewhere , or I ignore them.
To find the trees click on the person and you should see ethnicity comparisons , close matches to both , chromosome matches and trees (if any) are all in the one page
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Just checked and my results seem to be available. I have yet to explore the site and check for any matches. My ethnicity results are broadly similar on my Heritage and FTDNA.
I think some of the differences in results come down to the way they categorise the regions. Although I tested with FTDNA, I prefer the My Heritage categories.
Now I'm interested to see if I have any useful "cousin" matches. :)
ADDED:
Looking at My Heritage and my "DNA Matches" I find this message:
"Your DNA is being processed to find Matches".
Does anyone know if there is a delay in finding these matches (they have already given me my ethnicity results) or have I done something wrong? :-\
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I know my way around myheritage, it has it's pros and cons, just like Ancestry. I think the new segment comparison tool very handy, hope to use it more in the future.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=791029.0
There are trees to be had, as you say, and they are no better or worse than those at Ancestry, but do appear to me to be fewer.
By comparison, as stated before, I have 3 confirmed matches at myheritage, whereas I have nearly 50 at Ancestry. But there again, I have 1500 matches at the former and over 11,000+ at the latter, perhaps that is the reason.
As you say, "Like anything I shall take a little from here and a little from there."
Regards Margaret
BTW, out of interest I checked your gedmatch number with mine - said yours didn't exist!
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BTW, out of interest I checked your gedmatch number with mine - said yours didn't exist!
Hmm some reason a number has been left off. T812072
I shall edit. Thanks for letting me know
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For one branch of the family all the good matches are at MyHeritage, and a new one (1C2R) appeared at the weekend. Two of the matches have subsequently transferred to FamilyTreeDNA.
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ADDED:
Looking at My Heritage and my "DNA Matches" I find this message:
"Your DNA is being processed to find Matches".
Does anyone know if there is a delay in finding these matches (they have already given me my ethnicity results) or have I done something wrong? :-\
Standard. When you transfer data, you immediately get basics, matches take a few hours. Check again later today, or just wait for the email.
At gedmatch takes a day or so for 'one to many' matches to come through, 'one to one' you can use straight away.
Regards Margaret
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Thanks Margaret - I will keep checking back. :)
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Just checked and my results seem to be available. I have yet to explore the site and check for any matches. My ethnicity results are broadly similar on my Heritage and FTDNA.
My original FTDNA FamilyFinder results were:
British Isles 63%
Western & Central Europe 32%
Finland & Northern Siberia 5%
Then they sent me revised results:
British Isles 52%
Scandinavia 33%
Iberia 11%
Jewish,
Sephardic 3%
West Middle East <2%
Obviously they had changed their parameters - how do you categorise Norman French, Flemish, Anglian, etc?
Then a genealogist relative uploaded (downloaded?) my results to MyHeritage, and lo and behold I was now
Irish, Scottish and Welsh 60.2%
Scandinavian 19.3%
Finnish 4.9%
Iberian 6.8%
Italian 2.1%
Baltic 4.7%
Nigerian 1%
North African 1%
Go figure, as the Americans say.
Harry
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This is a useful discussion, thanks everyone. I didn't know before how to get around the 250 limit on the tree (thanks Margaret), and the discussion has helped me see that I'm not using My Heritage enough.
I uploaded my FTDNA results there, so now I have my DNA at Ancestry, FTDNA, My Heritage, Gedmatch, DNA Land and Geni. My difficulty is that I don't always remember all these sites, I don't always check them regularly, and I don't have much familiarity with some of them - we can sometimes have too much information for our brains!
So thanks for the incentive to spend more time at My Heritage.
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Eric, I mostly use my tablet these days, rather than my laptop. I 'Add to home screen' any site I use regularly, then bunch them together.
For example, I have all my genealogy (apart from DNA) in one box, all my DNA sites in another. That way as soon as I click on the box I am presented with all the DNA sites that I use, currently ancestryDNA, familytreeDNA, myheritageDNA, Gedmatch and Gedmatch genesis. So although I work mainly with ancestry, I don't forget the others.
But I agree, there is information overload.
Regards Margaret
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I've been having a bit of correspondence with one of my MyHeritage matches, and we are both puzzled. When I go onto the site and click on his details, lining them up alongside my results, it tells me he has Irish/Scottish/Welsh 0.0% and English 73.6%, Scandinavian 3.6% and North and West European 22.8%. But he tells me the results he was sent give him a mixture of Scottish, Irish, French, German and Italian. How can this disparity arise?
As with a few other MyHeritage matches I have, I actually know who his family are - his father comes from my home village in Scotland and taught at my old school - and I know his family-tree as well as I know my own. We had common ancestors called Murray. And both his parents were Scottish, from the same part of Fife, so how can MyHeritage say that their grandson has 0.0% Scottish DNA and 73.6% English? It doesn't make any sense.
Harry
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It doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't and yet it does.
(what follows is my personal view only and I don't claim any particular expertise).
The first thing to say is that the geographic ethnicity groupings that the testing companies use are not really accurately scientifically based. They work on using sample populations (which can in some cases be very small) to determine the predictors of any one "ethnicity". The fact that different companies use different sample populations shows that they can not all be right and in truth the probability is that none of them are fully right although most do have at least a trace of truth. this is why the ethnicity predictions of these companies should be taken with a large pinch of salt and not taken too seriously.
You mention the discrepancy between the ethnicities of your results and those of a match. You have not said how close or otherwise the match is but in an effort to show how things can change quite markedly even between two very closely related individuals I will detail my results. Originally ftDNA said I was 33% Scandinavian and 67% Western and Central European, note no British Isles which I did not take too well! When they "improved" their classifications they then said I was 16% Scandinavian and 84% Western and Central European, note still no British Isles. By comparison my father was classified at 7% British Isles, 47% Scandinavian and 46% Western and Central European. So even between myself and my father there are large differences.
This is a link to a previous discussion on here that references this subject and includes a link to a presentation the author gave at Who do you are Live.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=720079.msg5638447#msg5638447
Additionally here is a link to that author's blogspot where she details the differences in ethnicities from three generations of her own family
https://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/three-generations-of-ftdna-myorigins.html
and a look at what DNALiving said for her results
https://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/my-updated-family-ancestry-maps-from.html
So in short you will get different results from different companies and even very closely related people will have quite significant differences in their "ethnicities"
Probably over time these companies will be able to come more onto line with each other and the ethnicities will have more meaning but as things stand they can quite fairly be criticised and are really no more than a bit of fun (hope that does not offend).
Hope that helps a bit
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I agree entirely that the whole ethnicity thing is best seen as a bit of fun, and I realise from my own experience with FTDNA and MyHeritage that different companies come up with different results. What mainly puzzled me was that this chap had received ethnicity results for himself that differed markedly from what shows up on my computer when I click on his name in my list of matches.
Harry
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What mainly puzzled me was that this chap had received ethnicity results for himself that differed markedly from what shows up on my computer when I click on his name in my list of matches.
Harry
Hmm yes I had not picked up on that bit. Maybe he should ask MyHeritage if they can explain it (if you/he gets an answer I'd be interested what it is provided of course it does not give away any personal information).