DNA tests

[Wulfsige]

My DNA test has been done by Ancestry and by MyHeritage. Watching Stacey Dooley's "DNA family secrets" on TV I hear frequent references to a world-wide database of genetic test results, including 30,000,000 people. Will Ancestry and/or MyHeritage have supplied my results to this world-wide collection? If not, how does one get on to it?

[aghadowey]

Could it have been Gedmatch that was mentioned?
https://www.gedmatch.com/

[Wulfsige]

I don't know. It's never given a name as such. I'll take a gander.

[Ruskie]

Your results would not automatically be put any database (or anywhere unless).

I agree that they were probably referring to Gedmatch. I’m not aware of any others.

[CorleyMiller]

I suspect that the 30m figure is the collective number across all databases.

In the first episode Prof Turi King says to the two sisters "..I uploaded your DNA to one of the databases.." (it was still on our skybox so I checked )

[phil57]

There is no single database of every DNA test ever taken. GedMatch has a relatively small database of around 1.4 million kits. The biggest by far is Ancestry, with over 20 million tests. If you have taken a test with Ancestry your test will automatically be included for matching unless you have opted out. There is no other way to get into the Ancestry database, as they do not accept transfers in from other testing companies.

You can transfer your Ancestry test to other companies though, by downloading your raw test data and uploading it to their sites, including GedMatch, LivingDNA, FTDNA and MyHeritage (so no need to pay for a separate test with MH) and having uploaded your Ancestry test data you can opt to pay a much smaller fee to MH to unlock their matching and other DNA tools.

https://www.dataminingdna.com/who-has-the-largest-dna-database/

[Ruskie]

Just to add, Gedmatch is free (but a bit tricky to use, in my opinion). 

[Wulfsige]

I'm not very computerate, but I'll give it a go.

[Biggles50]

Ancestry is just Ancestry just as My Heritage is just them.

It is your data and legally no Company can pass your data on without your permission.

With regard to Ancestry, do you have a subscription there and do you have an extensive tree?

Please remember when you get the results the Ethnicity information is just an Estimate, it will radically change over time as Ancestry’s database expands.

To get the best out of Ancestry and the DNA matches it will present you need a family tree on their website and the tree really needs to go back to 1800 and to be as wide as possible and as complete as it can be.

If you have a tree in your own software you can export a Gedcom file and then import that file into Ancestry to replicate the tree there.

You will need to link your DNA results in Ancestry to yourself in your Ancestry tree.

Within Ancestry you can download your RAW DNA DATA to your computer and then upload it to Gedmatch once you have created an account there.

Gedmatch is free to use but usage is sort of limited, the more extensive tools are via subscription.

I have had zero luck with Gedmatch yet with My Heritage, My Living DNA and My Family Tree DNA have been more successful in gfinding Cousins.

This is not to decry Gedmatch as their subscription tools are very powerful and can enable deep processing of DNA to help narrow down which ancestor path you are your matches are linked via.