Ancestry DNA Circles

[Pheno]

Oh no - over the past month I have meticulously downloaded my private tree from Ancestry, trimmed it down to my direct ancestors and reloaded it as a public tree to which I have attached mine, my husband's and my daughter's ancestry dna results.

I thought I was enabling maximum use of possible dna matching by doing this and I was pleased to see this morning that each of us has now been included in a dna circle.  Hadn't been in any previously, not having a public tree, so was eager to see what benefits there were.

Oh no - included in the circle are all the false attachments of the main person at the head of the circle so all the rubbish trees have been used to make up the circle!

I wasn't expecting that - thought it would have some usefulness.

Pheno

[sugarfizzle]

Not quite sure what you mean, Pheno.

Are you saying that you aren't related to the same person as your match, or that other people in the circle have incorrect trees?

Regards Margaret

[Pheno]

Yes as in your second point Margaret.

I think we are probably all related cos Ancestry have spotted a dna match.  However when trying to form a circle of all the people who they think share the dna of a particular person and show you a combined overall profile of that person the spouses/children are all hit and miss cos they've included all the spouses and all the children that all in the circle have attributed to that person - half of which are rubbish cos the trees haven't been researched properly!

It seems to me to be Ancestry's version of the new familysearch tree (which is the basis for the find my past tree) - include anything that anybody has said is attached to this person whether or not it is correct or sourced!

For example the first person that I looked at - which Ancestry says I have in common with 7 other people with trees has 3 spouses (one of which is his child with her married surname) and a motley assortment of children half of whom don't belong in the family at all.  Because the other trees from which they've taken this info are public you can look at them and see that their info is rubbish but because they have attached it to the same head person then it is all combined into one profile implying he married 3 times - once to his married daughter - and had 5 more children than he actually had.

I am quite confident in my paper trail but because of that this circle business is not going to help me at all although it will help the others with their info providing they accept the dna match in the first place.

Rubbish!

Pheno

[sugarfizzle]

I have haven't found DNA circles particularly useful, I only appear in 3, should appear in several more.  I have found all the matches to be legitimate, but had found most of them by other means prior to the circle appearing.

One of my circles which 5 people belong to doesn't include the shared 3G grandfather, only the shared 3G grandmother, as one person has entered conflicting details for him. One member of the circle I am not a DNA match with, but her cousin is a match.

In your case, you are a DNA match with at least some of the circle, and they are a match with at least some of the circle. So, even though you believe their trees to be incorrect, they probably match with the same family, even though some details are incorrect. Just ignore the rubbish trees that are attached, and concentrate on the matches, if you are interested in them.

I have gently suggested to one match that his tree may be incorrect, he has thanked me for it, but not changed it as yet.

Regards Margaret

 

[Eric Hatfield]

I didn't find DNA circles at all useful - only one circle of 4 people, all of whom were known to me, and obvious. I couldn't see the value in them, but I readily admit to not understanding them very well. (I use past tense because I am not currently subscribed to Ancestry, so I don't see that one circle at all just now.)

I suspect I have limited results from this because I live in Australia, but my ancestors were from UK and Ireland several generations back, and only a limited number of ancestors migrated to Australia, and a very much more limited number in Australia have tested. Americans seem to have tested far more, have many more generations in their country and thus have many more close matches.