question about using ancestry dna on a grandparent

[bradelkington]

Hi there all I'm new to ancestry dna after 10 years doing my family tree ive gone as far as I can at the moment with quite a good full family tree.
I sent my sample off last week so am excited for the results, but I was wondering if I was to use ancestry dna on my 84 year old grandfather and used his results in my tree would it compare his dna records to mine, for example it shows say 4-6th cousins etc would it show his results to be likely grandparents or does it not work like that?
Just thought would be interesting to see the dna compared to myself to his? kind regards

[Pheno]

Yes, if you upload his results with yourself as administrator it should show a connection between you.  I adminster my daughter's results and it clearly records our close connection although in her case it can't distinguish between her being my daughter or my mother but knows the relationship is only one generation.  In her results it quite clearly shows that I am her mother.

Pheno

[weste]

Don't forget to upload your raw data to gedmatch.com and to ftna to get more matches.Gedmatch will give you some tools to play with and ftna you should be able to transfer your raw data but if you want the chromosome browser you will have to pay for it.

[bradelkington]

Thankyou both for your help, I'm very excited about this. Ive been messaging various people ive been in contact with about my own family tree to see if they have also had the dna test and ive got 3 people get back to me saying they've had the test, all 3 off different ancestors so I hope to get a match with at least one of them.

Is there a way to find who has taken a dna test in your tree before you get your own results, would be interesting to know which ancestors to look out for before getting my own results .

[familydar]

Hi bradelkington

I don't think there is a way of finding out who has tested other than by asking them.  But you shouldn't get fixated on particular lines anyway, part of the fun is the unexpected!

I echo weste's thoughts.  The more places anybody's DNA results are, the greater their chance of getting matches.  So encourage your relatives.  Each of the platforms has different tools, you can while away days

And while you're about it, make sure you and they upload a pedigree tree to everywhere that hosts the DNA results, giving dates and locations as far back as you can.  You can make living people anonymous and private if you wish.  Bear in mind that even if you don't know when or exactly where someone was born, if you know it was in England, say, that can be a great help to people searching for a common ancestor.

best wishes
Jane :-)

[weste]

What i also find that people have n't always built their trees out as far you need but you can see there's a possible connection, so I sometimes do a miny tree and off couse there's quite a few where there is not a tree attatched to their dna , occasionally it may be elsewhere or it may be private. Sometimes they may be out a generation with the prediction. Also ancestry still has a backlog.

[bradelkington]

Hi there thanks to all for your help, I had myself and both my parents tested.
Here is another question, I share with my father 3456.6 centimorgans shared across 64 DNA segments, I have just ordered a dna kit for my paternal grandfather

If I for example shared with my grandad 1500 centimorgans wud that mean I wud of inherited 1956 from my paternal grandmother?  So the combined centimorgans from both grandparents add to the amount I share with my father? reason I ask is that my grandmother is no longer alive and thought it would be interesting to see who I share more dna with out of the two ?

[sugarfizzle]

Don't forget the golden rule for autosomal DNA testing. Test the oldest generation still living, they will have much closer DNA matches to others.

Your grandfather's 2nd cousins will turn up as your 4th to 6th cousins. His 4th to 6th cousins might show as your 5th to 8th cousins, or not at all. His 5th to 8th cousins will be very unlikely to match with you at all.

Also, if your grandfather and you do match another person, you know it is from your paternal grandfather's side, you have automatically excluded 3/4 of your tree.

Margaret