My Heritage DNA - FREE Advanced Features

[Ruskie]

I received this email today and thought some of you may be interested in taking up the offer:

Taken a DNA test with another service?
We have great news — for a limited time only, you can upload your DNA data* to MyHeritage and enjoy all advanced DNA features for free, forever! We support DNA data files from Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA (Family Finder), and 23andMe.
For each NEW DNA file that you upload this week, you’ll receive free access to all advanced DNA features, saving you the usual AU $43 (GST included) unlock fee per kit. This rare offer is valid for the next few days only, until October 8, 2023 at 11:59 p.m.

(Prices are in AUD - I hope the offer works wherever you are in the world).

[melba_schmelba]

Thanks Ruskie, it's worldwide I think!
https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/10/upload-your-dna-data-to-myheritage-and-enjoy-free-access-to-all-dna-features/

[Ruskie]

Glad it is worldwide, thanks Melba.

As it is free, it is well worth taking up the offer, even if you’re not sure how useful you may find it, or how many unfavourable things you’ve heard about My Heritage. They have some quite useful tools and it is very user friendly.

I think My Heritage is quite popular in Europe so worth a try especially for anyone with European/Eastern European ancestry.

It’s given me some very good matches with people from all over.

[Biggles50]

I have been a subscriber to MH for over a year, but will not be renewing.

The DNA tools are OK, the matches are another matter, with very few of mine having any trees of significance but contact have been made with only two matches and another one going into my tree.

Personally I would not suggest that a MH DNA test is taken, far better results taking an Ancestry DNA test then uploading the DNA data to MH, you get the best of both worlds then.

[Ruskie]

Uploading raw data from Ancestry and taking advantage of the tools you usually have to pay for, saving a few dollars/poinds is what I am suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anyone pay for a My Heritage DNA test.

But since you mentioned it, for me, Ancestry has been disappointing - very few of my matches have trees, a few have only two or three names, and virtually no one responds to my messages.

Unless the infomation is hidden away or I’ve missed it (likely), on Ancestry you can’t even see what country your match lives in or their approximate age, which might at least have given a starting point to do your own research to try to find where your connection is.

I’m probably just unlucky match wise. 

[julianb]

Uploading raw data from Ancestry and taking advantage of the tools you usually have to pay for, saving a few is what I am suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anyone pay for a My Heritage DNA test.

But since you mentioned it, for me, Ancestry has been disappointing - very few of my matches have trees, a few have only two or three names, and virtually no one responds to my messages.

Unless the infomation is hidden away or I’ve missed it (likely), you can’t even see what country your match lives in or their approximate age, which might at least have given a starting point to do your own research to try to find where your connection is.

I’m probably just unlucky match wise. 

It's frustrating, isn't it?  I just check for each match identified by Ancestry to see if there are any further shared matches.  I just concentrate on these groupings

The one bonus with the My Heritage matching is that you can see what the relationship might be between two of your matches, which you can't with Ancestry (or I've just not worked out how to do it!).  So it is worth loading your ancestry test onto My Heritage when they have these offers.  I expect they want to grow their reference group by importing Ancestry test results.

JULIAN

[Biggles50]

Uploading raw data from Ancestry and taking advantage of the tools you usually have to pay for, saving a few is what I am suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anyone pay for a My Heritage DNA test.

But since you mentioned it, for me, Ancestry has been disappointing - very few of my matches have trees, a few have only two or three names, and virtually no one responds to my messages.

Unless the infomation is hidden away or I’ve missed it (likely), you can’t even see what country your match lives in or their approximate age, which might at least have given a starting point to do your own research to try to find where your connection is.

I’m probably just unlucky match wise. 

I did not think that you were suggesting that anyone buys a MH DNA test, it does have one saving grace though, its cost v Ancestry’s.

I have found a lot of matches on MH that seem to originate in Europe, something that is not as prominent on Ancestry since most of my matches to Italy on Ancestry are either in the UK or USA.

DNA works best when you make use of multiple sites.

The lack of trees and response to messages does seem to be a common annoyance, irrespective of the website from which the message is sent.

One thing I cannot get my head around is people uploading to Gedmatch and then not responding, it to me goes against what Gedmatch is for, putting relatives in contact with each other.

[melba_schmelba]

I have found a lot of matches on MH that seem to originate in Europe, something that is not as prominent on Ancestry since most of my matches to Italy on Ancestry are either in the UK or USA.

DNA works best when you make use of multiple sites.

The lack of trees and response to messages does seem to be a common annoyance, irrespective of the website from which the message is sent.

One thing I cannot get my head around is people uploading to Gedmatch and then not responding, it to me goes against what Gedmatch is for, putting relatives in contact with each other.

Yes MyHeritage may be better for some ethnicities and countries as it is often sold in supermarkets in Europe, even in France where DNA testing (or at least, the direct marketing of it) is against the law. I have actual matches within France fairly close, representing my French ancestry, which I do not have on Ancestry - the only hint there is Quebecois matches. It obviously does help as Ruskie says that on MyHeritage you can filter by matches' country although you do sometimes get Brit ex pats especially in France or Spain.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Lots of matches on MH for me (roughly on a par with ancestry),  but only three above 100cM in my case, two I already knew (a father and son) though the relationship predictions are out by two generations in both cases, rather disappointing given the strength of the match.  I really can't tell if any others are more accurate as they are too distant to work out the link.  Whilst some matches do have trees few if any of the UK trees go back very far, grandparents seem to be the norm with my matches and I generally struggle to find bmd records to support the claims in the trees.

I did pay for tools but as to how useful they are is largely dependant on the quality of matches and whether they have ticked the boxes to allow their results to be used in the chromosome browser and auto clustering. If they are free for new uploads then it's a no brainer really, even if they are not much use today a new match can pop up that makes a marked impact on where research can lead.

Having said all that my matches on Ancestry for the last month have been terrible, only one above 20cM (one of the MH tests mentioned above). Low cM 'no shared matches' and 'no tree' seems to be the order of the day right now.  Yesterday I had an Ancestry match at 11cM who has 100% Northern India ethnicity, no idea how or why that one has come up as it has to be  false match.