RootsChat.Com

Sorry to be late in on this, and I don't  know how accurate what I am going to say reflects the position throughout the rest of the UK, but as I worked until recently in a GP practice in Scotland for 25 years, ( I retired 31/12/2020), I am well aware that the paper records for a deceased patient were transferred back to CSA (Common Services Agency), shortly after their death, and similarly the online record was 'transferred out', back to CSA, when patients either left or died.  In the case of traditional/historical paper records, these records were only held on to (by CSA), for 3 years, and then destroyed. I would assume that the same would be likely for the online/electronic record too.

Paper record making within the practice ( ie clinical notes), stopped in my practice at the millenium (being replaced by entry into the online record for the patient), while incoming letters were scanned to the electronic patient record, starting in 2004.  Initially the letters were still filed in the patient record, but from about 2009 the original letters were shredded once a confirmed system backup had been verified. In the same way, the vast majority of paper based letters to the hospital, etc. disappeared, being relaced by electronic transfer more than a decade ago.

I hope this 'wee' summary might be useful and informative.  I don't know what happens at the hospital end, but I am sure they would have very similar procedures! Certainly, the vast majority of mail to the practice from secondary care (ie the hospital sector), has come in electronically for a number of years!

Jane


My point being that records may not be available for deceased patients for very long!

I know numbers aren't everything, but between thethe 3 tests I manage, I have >120 matches in since I checked yesterday about this time!!  My cousin is maternal, my dad is obviously paternal, and I will share the majority of my ones (38), with one or the other. Mine are mostly 15cM and under, but there are a couple >20! First registration dates vary from midish Novenber to 1st week in December.

Nothing of great interest though among my Dad's, the only ones I have looked at closely so far!  Umm..... I had promised myself I would clean the hall way this morning.......!

Jane

Thanks Fleming, for information re filtering, I would bet 80:20, that wasn't there when I checked it, earlier in the afternoon!!

I've got the update, and it is ok, but unfortunately, looks like you can only label a match with one tag, ie with only one family name, unlike the similar facility on Ancestry, where you can label  a match  with all the family names it might be linked to! Classically I label matches with the 2 surnames of the parental couple who are the nearest ancestors between you and the match.

** Sorry this was incorrect, you can ad label with more than one coloured dot, used to represent family names, by me!**

I tested towards the end of April, and it took a month for them to arrive at the main centre in England.  A week later they went off to USA, and sat in customs for a week before then leaving & arriving at the main 23&Me centre the next day. From this point my sample moved through the  remaining steps a wee bit faster than expected.  The first 3.5 - 4 weeks were the most aggravating! However, on the basis of Covid rampaging through the southern states of the USA, you can maybe understand it!

As to the value of the results, for someone uk based, I would say they are very much in second place to Ancestry, and , for me, third or even 4th place, after My Heritage, and FTDNA, perhaps on a par to FTDNA.

The problem is the vast majority of the matches are North American (I do have american side branches, that is why I tested), there are no family trees, in the usual sense, though they do draw up a tree for you, based on your matches, that may be of help to you.  Match information is often scarce, and their version of 'joint matches' is hard to understand and I would say poor.

Matches have a choice of how much of the poor information available that you have access to. For example you are asked to supply your grandparent details, but the vast majority of my matches have left this information blank. Without a tree, there is little other information to use, to get any sort of feel for where in your tree they just might belong! There is  an option to ask for acces to a matches information, but only 2 of about 8 have responded to me!!

However I have a few lines where my ancestors emigrated to USA, and I have found a few cousins, mainly because they were descended on the male line, with surnames i recognise!

It is not all bad, they do give cM values (& %), and use a chromosome browser, though as per info given above, this information is not always available to you!   I do find the joint matching information confusing, the only place where I seem to have overlap between the 2 sides of my family tree, ie my gold standard maternal 2nd cousin, 'matches' with two first cousin 1 time removed (ie children of my first cousins), on my fathers side. They provide a list of relatives in common, but the vast majority are noted as having 'no overlap'.  I assume the ones marked yes to overlap, are true shared matches!

I dont regret doing the test, as I have now covered all the bases where I might find matches, but it has been of limited use!!