My Heritage DNA - FREE Advanced Features

[4b2]

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.

If they have minimal trees on MY I will search for the dead-end in Ancestry trees, which is very quick and easy to work with in going back more generations. Most people born before 1900 occur in a tree, and many up to the 1940s.

I've been able to identify far more links with matches from quickly piecing together trees. Typically takes no more than 10 minutes per match. Even some where the link goes back to the 1700s and they just listed their grandparents in their tree.

On Ancestry, there is a search button at the top right of profiles:



Next to the clock and help icon.

If they have a short tree (on Ancestry) pull up all the dead end ancestor profiles, press the search button and look for continuations of the line in public trees.

For MyHeritage, you'll need to type them in.

Using this, I have been able to identify the link for about 80% of my matches over 40cM where I can identify the test taker.

When I can't find the link I assume it's due to a birth out of wedlock or infidelity. The historic infidelity rate was 1.35% or 1% according to two studies, throw in births out of wedlock and we're at about 3 if not 4% for the period in which autosomal tests are useful. Going back to 5th cousins, that's 11 pairings, so somewhere in the region of 1/3 chance of a non-paternal event.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Rather than making things fit by picking a 'right name/right place' event from bmd, census etc I try to eliminate things. I've disproved several of these three generation trees already. Any link to other trees that I could find (guessing at the blank generations in the process), would be nothing more than trying to hammer a puzzle piece showing a cloud into the middle of a flower bed in the hope it fits. 
It's a two way thing but until these matches show any inclination to put some effort into their trees and work with me there is little more I can do and I have other matches elsewhere to work on.

[Ruskie]

You make it sound very easy 4b2, and maybe you’ve been lucky. I’ve found not many trees exist that relate to my family lines and some of them are copied from other online trees which have errors, so those errors are then copied.

When I look at my DNA matches, any which have trees with names and dates, I firstly attempt to find them in bmd records, then work back from there in the hope of coming across a familiar name which also appears in my tree. I’ve managed to do that in a couple of cases only.

It would help to know age range and locations of Ancestry matches to give a time frame and place to start searching. MH give these details.

The search can vary wildly if your DNA match is 20 years old and lives in the USA, even if grandparents are named, compared to an 80 year old DNA match who lives in the UK and gives names of grandparents …. Common names and no dates lr places can result in hundreds of possibilities, which can turn an often tricky search, into an impossible one.

[Biggles50]

My Heritage screwed up my Wife’s DNA and the family tree of hers that we had there.  The tree had spurious additions made to it as though someone else had access when there should have been only me, we had taken out a years sub to unlock the features.

I kept getting hints that were supposedly for my own family but the hints were actually hers.

Then somehow they lost her DNA results (a MH DNA test) and were adamant that we had deleted them, as it was their own test I asked if they could re-instate them from their records, the NO was almost deafening.

I then deleted everything related to her and it took two months for My Heritage to actually remove the remnants of her tree and for me to stop getting her tree hints for my family.

All in all not a happy experience, but I’ll give MH another chance.

So I used the link and created a new account just in my Wife’s name that took advantage of the offer, and then uploaded her raw DNA from Ancestry.

Created a Family Tree for her of just three people, her and her parents.

Now its a waiting game to see what happens.

[Millmoor]

I took advantage of this offer and feel that it was certainly worth doing. It has generated a number of useful matches including one where I had not matched with a 3rd cousin who had tested with Ancestry but matched with her brother who had tested on My Heritage. However a couple of issues have now cropped up which I am struggling to get my head around. ( There is probably a perfectly sensible explanation but I  simply cannot see it!).

i now have two kits on My Heritage as, because it was half price, I decided to do the My Heritage DNA test as well. So I have the uploaded Ancestry kit as well as the My Heritage kit. I  have now received the My Heritage results. While I appreciate the differences in testing methods and in the chips they use what has surprised me is that while the uploaded Ancestry kit generated close on 17,000 matches the My Heritage kit has produced about 13,250 matches. As a result some of my useful matches produced by the Ancestry upload ( i.e for once I can actually see the connection) have not appeared as matches with the My Heritage kit. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!

William

[Biggles50]

I took advantage of this offer and feel that it was certainly worth doing. It has generated a number of useful matches including one where I had not matched with a 3rd cousin who had tested with Ancestry but matched with her brother who had tested on My Heritage. However a couple of issues have now cropped up which I am struggling to get my head around. ( There is probably a perfectly sensible explanation but I  simply cannot see it!).

i now have two kits on My Heritage as, because it was half price, I decided to do the My Heritage DNA test as well. So I have the uploaded Ancestry kit as well as the My Heritage kit. I  have now received the My Heritage results. While I appreciate the differences in testing methods and in the chips they use what has surprised me is that while the uploaded Ancestry kit generated close on 17,000 matches the My Heritage kit has produced about 13,250 matches. As a result some of my useful matches produced by the Ancestry upload ( i.e for once I can actually see the connection) have not appeared as matches with the My Heritage kit. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!

William

Good that you have so many.

For me MH has resulted in about half the DNA matches that Ancestry has given me.

Alas most of the MH matches only have small trees, its as though they have uploaded Ancestry raw data and not paid resulting in limited tree sizes.

Not that Ancestry is much better with large numbers of no trees or very small sizes, not to mention user names that offer no clue to the match, although I just linked to a user “Pauline and Dave 32675”

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

i now have two kits on My Heritage as, because it was half price, I decided to do the My Heritage DNA test as well. So I have the uploaded Ancestry kit as well as the My Heritage kit. I  have now received the My Heritage results. While I appreciate the differences in testing methods and in the chips they use what has surprised me is that while the uploaded Ancestry kit generated close on 17,000 matches the My Heritage kit has produced about 13,250 matches. As a result some of my useful matches produced by the Ancestry upload ( i.e for once I can actually see the connection) have not appeared as matches with the My Heritage kit. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!

William

Doubtless the variables in testing methods and interpretation account for the difference and it's well documented that MH matches at 50cM (and up to about 70cM in some cases), have often been shown to be false matches.

Given the option, rather than duplicate my own Ancestry test with an MH test  I would personally pay the extra to target test a family member via Ancestry and add the raw data to MH. I feel it is better to have two testers and one set of variables than one tester and introduce additional variables to the results.

[Millmoor]

Thank you both for your comments. To give a specific example of what I have found hard to understand.  I now know that GK tested on Ancestry. We do not match there but from his tree  I can see that he is  a 3C2xR , Using my Ancestry kit on MH we do match (24.8cM which DNA painter has as a 16% chance of being 3C2xR). While I understand the point made about MH and false positives do I just put the lack of a match on Ancestry down to the differences in the algorithms etc which the companies use?

William

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

do I just put the lack of a match on Ancestry down to the differences in the algorithms etc which the companies use?

William

That's the same as asking 'Do I put the match on MH down to the differences in the algorithms etc which the companies use?'

The fundamental question though isn't why are there two completely opposing results it's which one is correct. Either it's a match or it isn't, it can't be both and it's difficult to avoid confirmation bias. For example the trees and DNA Painter favour the MH result but the argument for the Ancestry result is that trees can be wrong and DNA Painter says 84% unlikely.

Relationships at that distance are pushing the limits of mtDNA testing and uptake of testing is still quite low. That's a positive and a negative for both sides of the debate but not a definitive argument for either side.