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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: bikermickau on Wednesday 25 April 18 03:59 BST (UK)
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Whilst I've seen various treads and news on DNA testing I never have and still don't consider it particularly useful to me.
However a sister purchased a DNA test from Ancestry for my birthday in Jan which I still have have sitting here unopened. I guess I will use it as it is a gift from a sister who joking stated that she wanted proof I was her brother. I have 9 siblings and jokes aside we are 99.9% confident we have the same parents. I do recall the birth of 6 of them at least, well kinda I wasn't actually in the room.
Mick
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If you donthink want to take/do it can you re- gift it ..
they are expendive presents
Or put it for someone of a different generation or aunt or nephew .
You may discover cousins you didn't know you had .
Or it will help your sister find extra matches ..you may find yourself with a bit of scandinavian or Celtic blood you didn't know you had
I found relatives who knew more about a particular branch in Scotland and someone who could explain what had become of the American cousins
All the best with it
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You may find your Bradbury link
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I had no interest in doing a DNA test but like you I got one for Christmas and I'm having great fun with it.
Nothing groundbreaking but it's fun working out how people match.
Helped solve one unnamed father puzzle for a match, still working on an adoptee puzzle with another match.
It's also made me look again at parts of my tree and I spotted a couple of records I'd missed before so I'm glad I did it.
You have nothing to lose by trying it.
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I've never been interested in doing one either as I don't see that finding out what % you are this or that is of any use.
However have read about "matches" - how does that work? Does the report give you a list of possible family names to contact or what?
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Seeing as you have it, you might as well use it. However, I have no interest in the commercial DNA tests, after seeing a comparison study of the effectiveness and accuracy.
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One of the problems with the current trend of giving DNA tests as presents, especially for Mother's Day and Father's Day is that even though I imagine most people will complete the test and send it off and even look at the results, I can imagine many people don't bother replying to emails from people who have found a match. I think that would be one of the biggest reasons why people contact somebody and never get a reply. I know I would reply if somebody gave me a test, (any offers?) , but at least one of my siblings just wouldn't be interested.
Martin
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You may find your Bradbury link
That is a great point, there is a likely possibility that he used his mother's maiden name.
Mick
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I've never been interested in doing one either as I don't see that finding out what % you are this or that is of any use.
However have read about "matches" - how does that work? Does the report give you a list of possible family names to contact or what?
I can only speak from my own experience, I don't like quite a lot of people who do the test have a tree on or subscription to Ancestry which people who have both and do DNA tests find annoying.
You get a list of matches with other people who have taken the test with the same company.
So in my case I started with 109 matches, it's gone up to 123 now.
1 was a first cousin
1 was a second cousin
about 10 3rd to 4th cousins
and so on.
I already knew my 1st and 2nd cousin but I sent messages to the 3rd to 4th some responded some didn't.
Yesterday I uploaded my Raw DNA (you can download this, from in this case Ancestry) to MyHeritage, it's still processing but it should be interesting to see what matches I get there.
I should add, not all features are open to me but I can see Shared Matches, so for example I made a list of all the matches I and my 1st cousin shared that why I know which side of the family they are on and can include that in the message to them.
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I see thanks for explaining :)
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You can see the person who s dna tree matches
Even if you don't recognise the surname you can search by names or location to see how you match
Someone who came up as 3rd cousin. To my mum actually was grandson of her grandmother who.do married and had a legitimate son who never knew about his half' sister my nana .
By location I.m seeing distant cousins who also have a link with a particular place ..but we.ll have to work furtherback in our trees to find the conNecton s
Some people put photos on their profile ..so you and see if there's a family resemblance .
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I have found distant cousins on both paternal and maternal branches - it backs up my tree for those branches.
I have documents to back up my pedigree from 1837 but DNA has helped prove what was already on my tree.
My paternal 3rd gt grandparents in the 1841 census were with their 2 youngest children, a son and daughter. The son was my 3rd gt uncle and I have found DNA links to me from people who have him as a 3rd and 4th gt grandfather so that confirms my 3rd gt grandparents and my 2nd gt grandfather. Two month ago I got links to my 2nd gt grandmother so now confirming both my 2nd gt grandparents. Last month my gt grandfather was confirmed as the son of my 2nd gt grandparents and my grandfather as their son. I have DNA links to my gt grandmother that confirms my gt grandparents. A complete paternal line in DNA from my 3rd gt grandparents to me. Late last year I also got confirmation of my paternal grandmother's mother's family.
On my maternal side I have one line from myself to my 4th gt grandparents and out to someone in America who is also the 4th gt grandchild of the couple.
I believe that DNA can help with backing up your papertrail and help before the registration of BMDs began.
P.S. don't expect it all to fall in place straight away, it's taken about 3 years to do this and I've got several where we haven't yet found where the link is.
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I have heard a few cases of people with Irish ancestry being able to crack some long-standing brick walls through DNA, so I have sent my test off and I'm currently waiting for my results.
If it's been given to you as a gift, then I see no reason why not to take advantage of it.
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My parents did DNA tests.
For me part of the interest in going through my mother's links involves backing up the paperwork, because it might suggest I've gone wrong somewhere if one place is void of matches but also just because it was written down doesn't necessarily make it true! Case in point, my grandfather has a birth certificate naming the man my great grandmother left her husband for, but DNA has confirmed conclusively that her husband was the biological father (something we already knew from family resemblance). Non-Paternal Events can and do happen.
Another thing is tracking down people where there is a lack of paperwork. My great great grandmother was illegitimate with her father not named. With the DNA, we've narrowed him down to one of five men and while we might never know which one did it, I now know the family he came from.
One last thing, as an aside, is helping other people. When you get a group of "shared matches" and you've identified where some of them are related to you, you can say that so-and-so must be related via the BLOGGS line somewhere and you might be able to solidify someone else's research.
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I’ve done one and am now testing other family members. I like that you can prove parts of your paper family tree; I found it fascinating that I connected with a cousin the other day with whom I share 5x great grandparents, I love knowing that’s correct. And I know that our three common matches will likely fit in on that branch somewhere.
Also, my great nan and great great nan were illegitimate. I have been given a name for each father from a relative - I’m hoping DNA will prove or disprove them.
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Might be useful to more than just you!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/26/golden-state-killer-dna-genealogy-websites
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Just received my DNA results from Ancestry today.
552 4th cousins or closer.
My sister who gave me the test as a birthday present likely won't be happy with me as I keep spamming her FB with points of interest from it.
I'm aware the below is approx and likely will change.
Ethnicity Estimate
Your DNA looks most like DNA from these 5 world regions
England & Northwestern Europe
43%
Your communities with a connection to this ethnicity region
The Midlands, England
North West England & the Isle of Man
Scotland
31%
Ireland
12%
Finland
9%
Your communities with a connection to this ethnicity region
Western Finland
Satakunta, Pirkanmaa & Southwest Finland
Satakunta, Pirkanmaa & Southern Ostrobothnia
Central & Southern Finland
Southern & Eastern Karelia
Sweden & Denmark
5%
I have ancestors from several Shires in England and from Wales. (I see no mention of Wales)
I do have Ancestors from both Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.
I do have one Ancestor from Finland, which may also account for Sweden & Denmark.
My Ancestors from Northern Ireland may account for the Scotland connection. The 31% does seem way too high to me.
I had expected a German connection as I have surname "Schacht" as several times Grandparents who lived in or around London. I've assumed and wiki suggests it's a German surname.
Maybe Sweden & Denmark could come in here.
Note: I likely still have relatives in Scotland that descend from 2 Northern Ireland born girls that remained there when their parents and siblings emigrated to Queensland, Australia.
Plus there are the 2 girls aunts and uncles Ralph's descendants.
I saw somewhere on the results that I may have a connection to Tasmania that I am not aware of. My only known convict relative wasn't there.
I do have several ancestors that I haven't traced out of Australia that may be from Ireland or Scotland.
I'm still exploring the results
Mick
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There are lots of things I have discovered:
I have traced the line of an unknown father, just don’t know which of the five sons did the deed.
I reconnected with a half first cousin and found others I didn’t know of.
Confirmed the name of my 3X great grandfather. My 2 X great grandmother always put John Ellis in fathers name. It was John Hughes Ellis. I confirmed this through a match in NZ who always put his full name.
Connected with more people from these lines.
Found out why my grandmother chose some stranger as executor of her will when she had siblings and an aunt and uncle still alive. He was married to a cousin.
Ethnicity I ignore and argue with. How can my liking of the bagpipes make me 16% Scottish. The same as my son whose father had a long line of Scottish forebears.
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I took a test with LivingDNA and their ethnicity gave UK and Ireland 89.7%, with North West England 34% and South Wales 24.3%, which seems right as my family is English/Welsh. What did not make sense was North West Scotland 1.8%. There are very few in my present family, so the results were not surprising. My closest relative was a 2nd-4th cousin and then 3rd-5th downwards. But I do have Asia South Pashtun 8.6% and Africa Nilotic People 1.6%. Pashtun is the Iran area and Nilotic People are from halfway down Africa on the West side. I am looking for my Welsh great-great-grandfather; a Williams from West Wales. It is like looking for the needle in a haystack, but I doubt that spreads to Asia or Africa. Initially, I dismissed the ethnicity breakdown as having no relevance.
A while later, I uploaded my Autosomal to Gedmatch. It offered me a very different set of matches and none from the LivingDNA list. One was much closer than the others, so I made contact. It established the North West Scotland link, as descendants were living in Wales from around 1750. That was from a much smaller percentage than Asia South Pashtun 8.6%.
Within the LivingDNA list, there are English and Welsh sounding surnames, but also anonymised people that are of little use. From the GEDmatch list, there are no Welsh sounding names and many seem to be in America, which really does not make any sense, but they may be very distant relatives, as the Scottish line goes back to 1750. I still have not found my great-great-grandfather.
Was the DNA test worth doing? As a sole searcher, even with DNA it is very difficult. For those with large families, taking several tests to cross-check, the results and accuracy may be better. I am pleased I took the test, as it offered me more than I expected.
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I tested with Ancestry, five years ago. The results immediately:
1. confirmed my research into a direct ancestor who emigrated to the US in 1855 and silenced his sceptical US descendants!
2. proved conclusively that my Dad was actually my biological father, which I had not expected.
3. showed a non parental event in 1874, which rendered 35 years of research on one line completely irrelevant!
OH's proved a family story that his great grandmother was fathered by a member of the aristocratic family for which his mother worked.
I recommend it and wait to see what the results throw up next.
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One side result of doing a DNA test is that your family tree research will widen considerably - in terms of finding, and adding, siblings and children from your direct line.
This is because you will have a number of cousin matches who either don't have trees, or have only researched on a limited basis, and therefore even though you have a DNA connection you can't recognise any surnames or find the link between you.
So it will indeed depend on whether you're keen, or have the time, to put in the extra research required.
I've tracked down a few relatives on this basis, but still have a couple with a relatively large cM match which I cannot pin down at all!