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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: AngelFish on Saturday 04 February 17 19:10 GMT (UK)
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Hi
I'm sorry I expect this has been asked before.
I'm looking for personal recommendations for DNA testing please? It'd be for a woman with no father or brother to test with so I think that means it needs to include autosomal testing.
I know of ancestry, 23andMe and Family Tree DNA testing services, but I don't understand which would be best in my case, or which can give data that can be uploaded to the other company sites to maximise chances of finding relations (people I can match a known ancestor with rather than just a match 1000s of years ago). Also ease of use and reliability of the company as I don't intend to test with more than one company.
I'm hoping for useful matches, but expect lots of American relations from a certain line of my family tree, do any of the results matching services have a way to filter the results that would help with this?
I have tried to read up on this, and I may be over-thinking, but I've looked at the company websites but my head is spinning and I feel like if I picked a company now I might as well be playing pin the tail on a donkey...
Help? Please?
Thanks, Angelfish
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I replied twice but it got lost in the ether both times so if nobody else replies by Thursday when I will be back home I will try again.
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Hi Angelfish, I think I can advise you.
I have tested with several companies:
Britain's DNA
Ancestry
FTDNA
And the new venture, Living DNA (my results are due in April with these).
Family Tree DNA should be able to provide you with a good possible selection of matches. Their way of matching can get rather technical at times. Their database is large.
Ancestry is good and is less "techy". Good to use if you have a tree hosted at Ancestry.
Both companies actual scientific results will be very, very similar.
There is a site called GED Match: you can upload any raw data to there from either company and also find matches there.
Hope this helps?
Cheers, Ade.
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Hi Angelfish, I think I can advise you.
I have tested with several companies:
Britain's DNA
Ancestry
FTDNA
And the new venture, Living DNA (my results are due in April with these).
Family Tree DNA should be able to provide you with a good possible selection of matches. Their way of matching can get rather technical at times. Their database is large.
Ancestry is good and is less "techy". Good to use if you have a tree hosted at Ancestry.
Both companies actual scientific results will be very, very similar.
There is a site called GED Match: you can upload any raw data to there from either company and also find matches there.
Hope this helps?
Cheers, Ade.
Hi Ade.
Thanks for your reply. So both Family Tree DNA and Ancestry will allow me to download the raw data in a format I can use with GED match?
Do you know if all companies do the type of test that is best for me as a female that wont be testing other close relatives as well.
Angelfish
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Autosomal will test both your maternal and paternal lines (but you might not be able to work out which line any matches come from). It will give contactable matches from 2nd cousins and beyond.
MTDNA, the other "female" test tests just the female line going back.
Autosomal is one of the cheaper options and sounds like it might be what you are looking for if you are looking for possible closer matches.
Many people recommend FTDNA. You can upload data from this test to Gedmatch. I am unsure if this is possible with Ancestry tests.
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Hi Anglefish, just to add to Ruskie good reply, yes, you can add raw data to Gedmatch from both Ancestry and FTDNA.
Cheers, Ade.
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Wasn't there some discussion a while back about the Ancestry tests regarding loss of access to your results or matches if you do not continue with a subscription? I vaguely remember something along these lines - maybe they changed this? :-\
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http://blog.kittycooper.com/tag/gedmatch/
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https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/ka215000000TyGYAA0/AncestryDNA-with-an-Ancestry-Subscription-US-1460090085520-3160
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That clarifies that, thanks youngtug. :)
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I've done autosomal with ancestrydna and ftdna. I had the rest of the family do the ancestrydna one.You can't upload other results to ancestry by the way. 2 years on now I am gonna do the new livingDNA. I will go to the wdytya in Birmingham so hopefully they may have offers on ad I know they are there. !y tree is on ancestry and mine and the rest of the families DNA is linked to it. I've heard a few people are disappointed with 23 and me. I saw a friends and I must admit I would n't have been happy either.
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I have a tree on ancestry with a subscription, but I don't want to have to continue to subscription. So I could move the data to another site.
If I test with Ancestry, does that mean my full tree will be public to anyone I match with? Including any extra sources, working notes etc I've made? I know I'd need to share my tree basic information like dates and places, but I'm not ready to make the whole thing public. If that is possible?
EDIT: I'm reading through the ancestry support pages
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AngelFish - my understanding is that Ancestry doesn't have a "make tree public to DNA matches only" option, whereas FamilyTreeDNA does. So at Ancestry your tree is on view to everyone if you make it public.
What you could do is download a GEDCOM from Ancestry and then upload it again to Ancestry as your second tree, and make that public. It wouldn't have all your attached documents and supporting records, and you could edit out your notes if you wished. You could keep your original tree with the notes and documents private.
In the past couple of days FamilyTreeDNA has been able to accept autosomal transfers from the new Ancestry chip. There is no cost to see your matches, but for $19 you can unlock some features such as chromosome browser (which Ancestry doesn't have). It sounds as if the payment process is very laggy though so if you do transfer (which doesn't remove it from Ancestry) you might want to wait a few days before unlocking and hopefully it will be fixed by then.
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Hi Angelfish.
Perhaps the Cymru DNA project or the Britain project might suit you.
Also you can buy it as a printed book to put on your bookshelf for reference.
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It is important to know that DNA testing looks to ancient times , say pre1500 years ago back to when your ancestors walked out of Africa 60,000 yrs ago.
Have a read on their website before deciding what to do.
Depends what test you take. If you are lucky you can find matches with others using a paper trail, so up to a few hundred years ago .....
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It is important to know that DNA testing looks to ancient times , say pre1500 years ago back to when your ancestors walked out of Africa 60,000 yrs ago.
Have a read on their website before deciding what to do.
Depends what test you take. If you are lucky you can find matches with others using a paper trail, so up to a few hundred years ago .....
I'm not impressed by their website. Britains DNA, Cymru DNA Wales, along with their Irelands DNA, Scotlands DNA and Yorkshires!!! DNA!!! are part of the myDNATM.global I've also looked at the Source BioScience website. They undertaking a research study and hope that people testing with them will allow their samples to be used.
From their website:
"Will I be able to compare my results to others to find possible relations?
No. We test for deep ancestry and your results are unlikely to help you contact living relatives, or indeed provide information on recent family history. Unlike other DNA ancestry companies which use short tandem repeats (STRs) and compare results to find possible matches, our SNP marker testing offers the best insight into your ancient genetic heritage."
Also:
"I have been looking into my family history. Will this be helpful to your research?
When you order your test, we will ask you to provide some information on your recent family history, as well as details of your earliest known male relative. This information is helpful to BritainsDNA's ongoing research into the genetic make-up of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
However, at this time, the results of our testing concern deep ancestry only, and are unlikely to provide information on your recent ancestors or "bridge the gap" with your own genealogy research. Therefore you should not expect your family history research to be incorporated into the results you will receive. It will however be very useful to the ongoing project, in helping us to amass a body of data on British genetic history which can be used for further research."
The testing they offer is not at all what I am looking for, and would be a complete waste of my money.
Angelfish
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This might suit you:
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/dna-basics/autosomal/
(and it is one of the cheaper tests too)
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This might suit you:
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/dna-basics/autosomal/
(and it is one of the cheaper tests too)
Thats the one I'm leaning towards Ruskie. It'd be about £74. That or trying to decide if it'd be worth doing the Ancestry one, then paying to also transfer the data to Family Tree DNA but that'd be a total of approx £115.
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Though still cheaper than other tests, that is more expensive than I expected. I paid under $100AUD for mine a few years ago, and they have been even lower. Also, keep in mind the cost of postage when ordering tests.
There are regular sales at FTDNA so if you are in no hurry you might like to hold out for one.
(I'm pretty sure there was an offer not too long ago.) :-\
Good luck whichever test you decide to take..
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Though still cheaper than other tests, that is more expensive than I expected. I paid under $100AUD for mine a few years ago, and they have been even lower. Also, keep in mind the cost of postage when ordering tests.
There are regular sales at FTDNA so if you are in no hurry you might like to hold out for one.
(I'm pretty sure there was an offer not too long ago.) :-\
Good luck whichever test you decide to take..
Thanks
The current price for the Family Tree DNA 'Family Finder' test is 79 USD, plus 12.95 USD postage. The exchange rate is poor for GBP.